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RESTITUTION OF ALL THINGS. 



RESTITUTION OF 



ALL THINGS. 



BY 



W. M. WILLETT. 



" Thus heavenward all things tend. For all were once 

Perfect, and all ?nust be at length restored. 

So God has greatly purpos" 1 d ; who would else, 

In his dishonored works, himself endure 

Dishonor, and be wronged without redress? " 

— Cowper. 




NEW-YORK: 

FRANCIS HART & CO. 63 MURRAY ST. 

1880. 



Ci\ 



7/ 




Copyright, i88o } 

by , 

W. M. WlLLETT. 



TS * LlBR AR y 

Congre ss 



of 



washing* 



on 



Press of Francis Hart & Co. 

New- York. 



Equitation 



JAMES WILKINSON, M. D. 

As a mark not only of esteem and friendship, but as a sincere 
tribute to his professional skill, of which for many years I have 
been the happy recipient, but most especially for the benefit 
derived on his return from Europe, last summer, when almost 
despairing of help, he raised me up under God from a most 
painful and protracted illness. 

Retaining a most grateful sense of his invaluable services 
on this special occasion, and having no other way to show it, 
I desire (without his knowledge, and without committing him 
in any way to what is advanced in this work) to beg of him to 
accept what I here offer, as a testimonial of affection and respect 
which I trust will never pass away. 

W. M. WILLETT. 

Bergen Heights, Jersey City, 
August 17, 1880. 



PREFACE. 



JJZE read in Isaiah these words : " The people that 
* * walked in darkness have seen a great light ; they 
that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them 
hath the light shifted." * 

This is a prediction of the introduction of the Gospel of 
the Son of God among the Gentiles, and alludes to our 
Saviour leaving Nazareth and dwelling in Capernaum, 
" which is upon the sea-coast, in the borders of Zabulon and 
Nepthalim : that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by 
Esaias the prophet, saying, The land of Zabulon, and the 
land of Nepthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, 
Galilee of the Gentiles ; the people which sal in darkness 
saw great light, and to them which sat in the region and 
shadow of death light is sprung up." f 

So that our Lord's residence, chiefly in Capernaum and its 
vicinity, during the period of his ministry, had reference to 
his mission to the Gentiles, as well as the Jews, inasmuch as 
it was on the outermost borders of the land of Israel. The 

* Isaiah ix. 2. t Matthnv iv. , rj-16. 



- 



viii Preface. 

" great light" could the more easily penetrate into the region 
" beyond the Jordan" and the fame of his mighty works 
which he didi?i Capernaum and the adjacent cities send it's 
loud report into " the region and shadow of death." Such 
was, indeed, the fact ; and many from u Galilee of the Gen- 
tiles " came to Jesus to hear and to be cured. 

Thus, also, on that eve?itful day " whe?i the pare?its brought 
in the child Jesus, to do for him after the custom of the 
law" * Simeon, " to whom it was revealed by the Holy 
Ghost that he should not see death before he had seen the 
Lord's Christ" f being led by the Spirit, " came into the tem- 
ple, and taking him up i?i his arms, blessed God, aiid said : 
Lord, ?iow lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, accordi?ig 
to thy word ; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which 
thou hast prepared before all people ; a light to lighten the 
Gentiles, and the glory of thy people, Israel? 'J 

Speaking thus by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, Sim- 
eon did but repeat what all the holy prophets had foretold 
from the beginni/ig, — that " the Gentiles shall come to thy 
light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising." § The 
wonder is that, written in characters of light clear as the sun, 
the Jews did not see this. Thei'e is but o?ie explanation to 
be given. It is this. " Who is blind but my servant? or 
deaf, as my messenger that I sent ? Who is blind as he that 
is perfect, and blind as the Lord's servant? " || 

To this effect speaks St. Paul: " Their minds were 
blinded; for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken 
away in the reading of the Old Testament, which vail is 
done away in Christ." fl 

This u great light " shining upon the Gentiles, illuminating 
" the land of the shadow of death" accords with what we 

* Luke ii. 27. t Luke ii. 2b. 1 Luke ii., 28-32. % Isaiah l.v. 3. 

|| Isaiah xlii. 19. H //. Corifithians Hi. 14 



Preface. ix 

read elsewhere — with the declaration of God to the children 
of Israel, through his servant Moses, at the commencement 
of their wonderful career as a nation : " But as truly as 1 
live, all the earth shall be. filled with the glory of the Lord" * 

Also with what we read in the prophecy of Isaiah, along 
with the announcement of 'John the Baptist as the forerunner 
of the Messiah : " And the glory of the Lord shall be 
revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of 
the Lord had spoken it" f 

Also, as iv e read in the prophecy of Habakkuk : " For 
the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of 
the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." % 

Last of all, Ma lac hi closes a record so replete with the 
promises of God respecting the future of our earth : " From 
the rising of the su?i even unto the going down of the same, 
my name shall be great among the Gentiles, and in every 
place incense shall be offered unto ?ny name, and a pure 
offering ; for my name shall be great among the heathen, 
saith the Lord of hosts." § 

Associated with declarations so full of promise and so re-as- 
suring to the heart of man under the dark cloud of time, is 
an event so great in itself, so big with momentous results, as 
to awaken the deepest interest, joined with the tctmost solici- 
tude, and in comparison with which all else that may trans- 
pire in the ordinary course of human affairs is sjnall, trifli?ig 
and insignificant. We speoJz, of course, of the second com- 
ing of Christ to our world, to which reference is thus made : 
u And as it is appointed unto man once to die, but after this 
the judgment, so Christ was once offei'ed io bear the sins of 
many, and unto them that look for him shall he appear the 
second time without sin unto salvation." || 

* Numbers .vlv. 21. \ Isaiah xl. J. X Habakkttk ii. 14. § Malachi i. II. 

j| Hebrews ix., 27, 28. 



x Preface. 

Allied with all our hopes, basal 071 the word of God, is 
the great fact, " the glorious appearing of the great God and 
our Saviour, Jesus Christy* For the present, temporarily, 
he is in heaven, agreeably to the words of the apostle Peter, 
spoken, if not on, soon after, the great day of Pentecost, and 
deriving their authority from the gift of the Holy Ghost, 
received, according to the promise of the Father, on that ever 
memorable day. These are the words : " And he shall send 
Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you : whom 
the heaven must receive until the time of restitution of all 
things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy 
prophets since the world began.' 11 f 

Jt is on the strength of these words and what they imply 
that this work has been written. Hoping it may draiu 
attention to so great a subject — the importance of which is 
perhaps not sufficiently recog?iized — and put hope where 
there may have bee?i but little before, the writer commits his 
work, with no small degree of solicitude, to the public at 
large. 

July 15, 1880. 

* Titus ii. ij. f A cts Hi. , 20, 21. 



CONTENTS. 



I. 

Page. 

The Throne of David, and the Restitution of 
all Things, built upon the Resurrection of 
Jesus Christ from the Dead. 

CHAPTER I. 

Faith 3 

CHAPTER II. 

The Throne of David 7 

CHAPTER III. 

The Coming of Christ Jesus the Lord to sit on the Throne of 
David Contemporaneous with the Beginning of the Times of 
the Restitution of All Things 14 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Kingdom of God 20 



II. 

The Promised Day of Israel. 

CHAPTER I. 

The Coming of Christ Jesus the Lord to Sit on the Throne of 
David Identical with the Conversion of the Jews 31 



xii Co?ite?its. 

chapter ii. Page. 
The Fullness of Israel 40 

CHAPTER III. 

The New Covenant which the Lord will make with the House 
of Israel 51 



III. 

The Mystery of Iniquity. 

CHAPTER I. 

Unbelief 61 

CHAPTER II. 

The Prince of this World 65 

CHAPTER III. 

The Reign of Blasphemy 71 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Judgment of the Woman 87 



IV. 

The Renewed Earth. 

CHAPTER I. 

The Earth '. 85 

CHAPTER II. 

The Earth Redeemed and Prepared for the Glory to Come ... 91 

CHAPTER III. 

Jerusalem, the City of the Great King 98 



Coiitents. xiii 

chapter IV. Page. 
The Immensity of the Temple to be Built upon the Return of 
the Remnant of Israel to their own Land 104 

CHAPTER V. 

The Boundaries of the Promised Land Greatly Enlarged, and a 
New Division or Arrangement of the Land when Repos- 
sessed by the Children of Israel as their Everlasting In- 
heritance 112 



V. 
The Restitution of All Things. 

CHAPTER I. 

Light 121 

CHAPTER II. 

The Restitution of all Things the Great Theme of Prophecy 
since the World Began 126 

CHAPTER III. 

A Feast unto all People 133 



VI. 
The Book of Revelation. 

CHAPTER I. 

Sin 145 

CHAPTER II. 

The Power of God as Displayed in the Judgments which, in 
the Future as in the Past, he will send upon the " Inhab- 
iters of the Earth " for their Iniquity 149 



xiv Contents. 

chapter in. Page. 
The Final Conflagration as a Preparation for the Renewed 
Earth, wherein dwelleth Righteousness 166 



VII. 



The Ground on which the Restitution of All 
Things actually Rests. 

CHAPTER I. 

Love 1 75 

CHAPTER II. 

The Love of God to Man, and its Effects upon his Present and 
Future Condition 180 

CHAPTER III. 

The Principle of Divine Forgiveness, as Shown in God's Deal- 
ings with his Ancient People Israel 187 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Ultimate Perfection and Felicity of all God's Creatures. . .194 

CHAPTER V. 

Some of the Happy Results Growing out of the Great Theme 
of all Prophecy, the Restitution of All Things 204 



VIII. 

The Glory of the Lord filling the Earth. 

CHAPTER I. 

Last Words 217 

CHAPTER II. 

There Shall Be No More Curse 222 



Contents. xv 

CHAPTER III. ^ge. 

The Lord King Over All the Earth 229 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Glory of the Lord to Fill the Earth 239 

CHAPTER V. 

Peace on Earth, Good- will to Men : 247 

CHAPTER VI. 

How the Lord Jesus Christ will become King of all the Earth. 255 



I. 



THE THRONE OF DAVID, AND THE RESTITUTION OF ALL THINGS Bl 
UPON THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST FROM THE DEAD. 



CHAPTER I. 



Faith. 



THE grand principle of the Bible, its all-pervading 
force and life, that which gives it its chief character- 
istic teature, which distinguishes it from all other books 
and makes it what it pre-eminently is —The Book — is 
faith in God. This is the foundation on which we are to 
build; and it must be a faith simple, implicit, strong, 
and which, like that of the Israelites as they compassed 
the city of Jericho, caused the walls thereof to fall to the 
ground, without a single weapon of war having been lifted 
up against them. No battering-rams were there, nothing 
of human strength, save a shout and a sound of trumpets ; 
but faith was in strong and vigorous exercise, and action 
within a prescribed range, in conformity with the command 
of the invisible leader of the hosts of Israel ; and the walls 
of Jericho parted asunder and fell, crumbling and broken, 
to the ground. Forty years of rigid training in the wilder- 
ness of a new generation, under the immediate inspection 



4 The Throne of David, and 

of the Almighty, through his servants Moses and Aaron, 
under difficulties and through manifold trials and tempta- 
tions, led to this first successful essay in arms of the hosts 
of Israel. A faith like this is the work of years ; it is not 
a harvest that can be gathered in a day. Many a hard 
battle must first be fought with blind unbelief. The whole 
tendency of the soul, by its natural gravitation, is in a 
contrary direction, and we must work against this, by the 
power which God gives us, as for dear life. The faith of 
the army of Israel at this time was wonderful ; such as 
had never been seen before, and has not been seen since, 
and will not again be witnessed until literal redeemed 
Israel shall have avouched faith in the Messiah ; and, 
under this banner, shall march forth to the conquest of 
the world. 

This notable instance, on a large and conspicuous scale, 
may serve somewhat as an exemplification of the nature, 
power and results of a true, living and perfect faith in 
God. It takes you out of the realm of ordinary realities 
and every-day, commonplace events, and transports you 
into another sphere, like it did the Israelites in the wilder- 
ness ; and leads you to see and acknowledge the hand of 
God in the midst of the manna that strewed and Whitened 
the sterile ground with every returning morning, and the 
water that flowed so copiously from the flinty rock, both for 
man and beast, when struck by the more than magic wand 
of Moses; amid the light that glittered in the night season, 
throwing its bright radiance around the entire encamp- 
ment, covering, as it must necessarily have done, so large 
a space of ground, and the overshadowing cloud that in 
the daytime spread itself over an equally large space and 
attempered the hot rays of the burning sun to the oft- 
fainting crowd, weary and footsore as many a time they 



The Restitution of All Tilings. 5 

w ere ; crying for water and pining for the cooling dainties 
they had left behind in the land of their languishing servi- 
tude. It is, indeed, by the exercise of such a living, 
o'ermastering faith as this, that you are, as it were, trans- 
ported into a different world, live a new and different 
life, and draw your daily supplies from the hand of the 
living God. This is what it would be in reality, if our 
circumstances were like those of the Israelites in the 
wilderness to call it forth, and we had been led like them 
into a barren land by the express command and under the 
immediate guidance of the Almighty; and this is, in all 
soberness and truth, what a true, living and perfect faith is, 
in its very essence, at all times and under all circum- 
stances, in every variety and condition of life. 

It is such a faith as this — all realizing and vitalizing — 
that is imperatively required in dealing with a subject so 
deep, so dark, so mysterious, so sacred as forms the 
subject of this work. It does not question God, wishing 
to know the reason why, or the ground for, when he leads 
or commands, any more than Abraham did when called 
upon to offer Isaac upon the altar of burnt-offering; or 
Paul, when called from on high by the voice of Jesus, 
whom he had persecuted, but, laying down at once the 
weapons of his rebellion, he was " not disobedient to the 
heavenly vision." 

It is of a faith like this — so victorious — that our Lord 
saith " nothing is impossible to it," there is nothing that it 
cannot accomplish. These are his words : " If ye have 
faith as a grain of mustard-seed, ye shall say unto this 
mountain, Remove hence to yonder place, and it shall 
remove; and nothing shall be i?npossible unto you." * The 
same thing is expressed in fuller form and with still stronger 
emphasis, falling from the same sacred lips, in the fol- 

* Matthew xvii 20. 



6 The Restitution of All Things. 

lowing carefully measured words : " Verily I say unto you, 
that whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou 
removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not 
doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which 
he saith shall come to pass, he shall have whatsoever he 
saith. Therefore I say unto you, what things soever ye 
desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them and ye 
shall have them." * 

We perceive, therefore, from the above, however incred- 
ible it may appear to a low and sensual mind, and derog- 
atory even to God, that the Lord Almighty puts himself, 
so to speak, his infinite power, glory and majesty, into the 
hands of weak, dependent man. And this is illustrated 
and God magnified by the acts, as we read in the Old 
Testament, of such men as Moses and Elijah; and, in 
the New Testament, of such men as Peter and John, 
apostles of the Lord Jesus, in whom was revived the faith 
that divided the Red Sea, brought down fire from heaven, 
and raised the dead to life again. 

This wonder-working power, this faith in God, possessed 
of which we are told " nothing shall be impossible unto 
us," — is built upon the declaration of Christ Jesus the Lord 
to his disciples, after his resurrection from the dead, when 
he appeared unto them on a mountain in Galilee, to "above 
five hundred brethren at once " ; f the greater part believ- 
ing in him, " but some doubted." % " And Jesus came 
and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me 
in heaven and in earth" § 

It is such a faith, built on such a foundation, which, 
while it honors God, proclaims aloud and ratifies such 
words as these, from the lips of the Lord Jesus : " Ye 
believe in God, believe also in me." \\ 

* Mark xi. 23, 24. 1 1. Corinthians xv. 6. { Matthew xxviii. 17. 
§ Matthew xxviii. 18. || John xiv. 1. 



CHAPTER II. 



The Throne of David. 



THERE is this striking peculiarity about the throne 
of David, and Christ Jesus the Lord seated thereon, 
that while in reality he is " over all, God blessed forever," 
" the same yesterday, and to-day and forever," * yet he 
comes among us the second time as the Son of David, 
as the heir of a royal line ; as the same Jesus of whom the 
angel Gabriel said to the virgin mother : " The Lord God 
shall give unto him the throne of his father David: and he 
shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of his 
kingdom there shall be no end." t 

There can be no Soubt as to his appearing among 
us as in the days of his flesh, when incarnated among 
us. Hardly had our Lord been taken up into heaven, 
disappearing from sight, when "two men stood by the 
disciples in white apparel, which also said, 'Ye men of 
Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven ? This 

* Romans ix. 5; Hebrews xiii. 8. t Luke i., 32, 33. 
7 



8 The Throne of David, a?id 

same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, 
shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into 
heaven.' " * 

In the opening of the book of the Revelation of Jesus 
Christ we also read: "Behold, he cometh with clouds; 
and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced 
him : and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of 
him. Even so, Amen." f 

In Zechariah we find words to the same purport. He 
is speaking of " that day" when " the Lord will pour upon 
the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusa- 
lem, the spirit of grace and supplication ; " and in con- 
junction with this outpouring of the Holy Spirit we find 
"the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem" 
"looking upon him who?n they have pierced" the wound in 
his pierced side visible, even as doubting Thomas saw and 
felt it, and was convinced thereby that it was the self-same 
Jesus who had risen from the dead, " answering and 
saying, My Lord and My God." | 

So, also, Jesus, when interrogated in the most solemn 
manner by the high-priest, after this wise : "I adjure thee, 
by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the 
Christ, the Son of God ? Jesus saith unto him, Thou 
hast said : nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye 
see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, 
and coming in the clouds of heaven." § 

When, therefore, our blessed Lord shall come again 
with great power and glory, to "judge the world with 
righteousness and the people with his truth," || he " will 
come in like manner as his disciples saw him go into 
heaven." He will appear among us as he appeared to his 

* Acts i., 10, ii. t Revelation i. 7. \ Zechariah xii. 10; John xx., 27, 28, 29. 

§ Matthew xxvi., 63, 64. || Psalm xcvi. 13. 



The Restitution of All Things. 9 

disciples after his resurrection from the dead, with the 
marks in his hands and the hole made by the spear which 
pierced his side ; not as yet having reached that point of 
time — "the end, when as God, even the Father, the 
kingdom shall be delivered up to him, and he " (Jesus), 
"the Lord of all," "shall have" (of himself) "put down 
all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign 
till he hath put all enemies under his feet." * 

It is, then, as the Son of David, the Son of Man, the 
Son of God, — as "he took upon him the form of a 
servant, and was made in the likeness of men," t it is in 
his human guise, but perhaps with a heavenly radiance 
somewhat like that which was seen when transfigured on 
the holy mount, that " he shall sit on the throne of his 
father David; reign over the house of Jacob forever; 
while of his kingdom there shall be no end." 

As to this there cannot be a shadow of doubt. It 
rests on a basis indestructible, immovable. God does not 
take into account men's humors, or views, or prejudices. 
His word is the first and the last resort. It was on the 
day of Pentecost when, in answer to their united and 
believing prayer, the disciples received " the promise of 
the Father," "the gift of the Holy Ghost," without 
measure or stint, that the apostle Peter, speaking of the 
resurrection of Christ from the dead, assured the Jews 
that the patriarch David was not speaking of his own 
resurrection, but that of Jesus Christ the Lord, when he 
said, " Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt 
thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption."! Then 
he adds these most remarkable words : " Therefore, being 
a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath 
to him 'that of the fruit of his loins, according to the 

* I. Corinthians xv. 24. f Philemon ii. 7. \ Psalm xvi. 10. 



ro The Thro?ie of David, and 

lesh, he would raise up Christ, to sit on his throne ' ; he, 
seeing this before, spake of the resurrection of Christ, that 
his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see 
corruption." * 

We have, in a passage of another prophetic psalm, 
the same absolute assurance that Christ would sit on the 
throne of David, an additional confirmation of what the 
angel Gabriel said to Mary. " The Lord hath sworn 
the truth unto David; he will not turn from it; of the 
fruit of thy body will I set upon the throne." f 

In the second psalm, truly a messianic psalm, made 
perfectly plain and clear by the exposition of St. Paul, we 
have the same great truth, the same wonderful event, 
formally stated and corroborated. The entire psalm is 
devoted to the kingdom of Christ; proclaims its king; 
shows the foundation on which his claim rests ; and, as an 
irrefragable proof or test of its validity, " gives him the 
heathen for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the 
earth for his possession." J The foundation — broad, 
deep, high — on which this magnificent structure, this 
glorious, everlasting kingdom is built, is the resurrection 
of Jesus Christ from the dead. It is thus set forth : 
" While vainly the heathen rage, and the people imagine a 
vain thing, setting themselves in array against the Lord, 
and against his anointed, He that sitteth in the heavens 
shall laugh, the Lord shall have them in derision, saying : 
Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will 
declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art 
my son; this day have I begotten thee." § Upon this St. 
Paul thus comments, and settles the exact meaning of this 
peculiar phraseology. After rehearsing in brief the history 
of Israel to the time of David the son of Jesse, and 
showing that from " this man's seed hath God, according 

* Acts ii., 30, 31. t Psalm cxxxii. 11. % Psalm ii. 8. § Psalm ii., 6, 7. 



The Restitution of All Things. 1 1 

tc his promise, raised unto Israel a Saviour, Jesus," he 
goes over the record of his death and burial; "but," he 
adds, " God raised him from the dead, and he was seen 
many days of them which came up with him from Galilee 
to Jerusalem, who are his witnesses to the people." * 

He then proceeds to say — and it is this inspired com- 
mentary which gives us the true interpretation of these 
most remarkable words — "and we declare unto you glad 
tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the 
fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, 
in that he hath raised up Jesus again ; as it is also written 
in the second Psalm, Thou art my son, this day have I 
begotten thee. And as concerning that he raised him up 
from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, he 
said on this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of 
David." f 

Thus far we find, on a subject so vital, so intimately 
connected, so inseparably conjoined with the ultimate 
restitution of all things, the most perfect agreement 
between the apostle Peter, the Psalms and Isaiah; and it 
is here to be noted in the outset that this grand and all- 
absorbing theme, the restitution of all things, of " which 
the Lord hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets 
since the world began," has its source, life and power, its 
end and aim, in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the 
dead. The coming of Christ, his resurrection from the 
dead to sit on the throne of David, and the restitution 
spoken of, are all parts of one great whole, and belong to 
that new and more blissful order of things of which God 
speaks when he says : " Behold, I make all things new." | 

The great fact that God had sworn with an oath to 
David, that of the fruit of his loins according to the flesh 
he would raise up Christ from the dead to sit on his 

* Acts xiii., 30, 31. f Acts xiii. , 32-34. X Revelation xxi. 5. 



12 The Throiie of David, and 

throne, is thus alluded to by Jeremiah ; " Behold, the 
days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David 
(that is, from the dead) a righteous branch, and a king 
. shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and 
justice in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved, and 
Israel shall dwell safely : and this is his name whereby 
he shall be called, The Lord our Righteousness."* 

In another part of the prophecy,! we find nearly a 
repetition of the above words, with this additional assur- 
ance from the Lord, through the mouth of his servant 
Jeremiah, that " David shall never want a man to sit upon 
the throne of the house of Israel; neither shall his priests 
the Levites want a man before me to offer burnt-offerings, 
and to kindle meat-offerings, and to do sacrifice con- 
tinually." % 

There can be no mistake as to the " man who is to sit 
upon the throne of the house of Israel." This is his name 
whereby he shall be called, The Lord our Righteous- 
ness. We need not go far back to find his genealogy, to 
trace his record. It has not been lost or swallowed up in 
the long lapse of years. This name belongs to none other 
than the Lord Jesus Christ, concerning whom St. Paul 
says : " Which was made of the seed of David according 
to the flesh, and declared to be the son of God with 
power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrec- 
tion from the dead." § 

In another passage of this prophecy it is made, if 
possible, still more evident who the man is that is "to 
sit on the throne of the house of Israel." Jeremiah, 
speaking of a time of great trouble that awaits Israel and 
Judah, and their deliverance out of it, " their yoke taken 
from off their neck, freed from their bonds, and strangers 

* Jeremiah xxiii. , 5, 6. t Jeremiah xxxiii. , 14, 15, 16. 

% Jeremiah xxxiii., 17, 18. § Romans i., 3, 4. 



The Restitution of All Things. 13 

no more serving themselves of him," says, in this the day 
of their deliverance, " They shall serve the Lord their God, 
and David their king, whom I will raise up (evidently 
referring to the resurrection from the dead) unto them." * 

The absolute certainty that " David shall never want a 
man to sit upon the throne of the house of Israel," that this 
man is "The Lord our Righteousness," that he "was 
made of the seed of David according to the flesh," and 
raised accordingly from the dead for this purpose, and to 
prove to a demonstration the oath and truth of God, is 
clearly evident from " the word of the Lord which came 
unto Jeremiah, saying : If my covenant be not with day 
and night, and if I have not appointed the ordinances of 
heaven and earth, then will I cast away the seed of Jacob, 
and David my servant, that David my servant should not 
have a son to reign upon his throne ; that I will not have 
any of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, 
Isaac and Jacob : for I will cause their captivity to return, 
and have mercy on them." f 

This, then, is the broad, "high and lifted up," and 
immutable basis on which the throne of David rests, now, 
perhaps, in the near future — the exact time who can tell? 
— even the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. 
And in connection with this marvelous event, on which, 
indeed, the whole structure of revelation rests, we can 
hardly fail to notice how indissolubly joined it is with the 
return of the seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to their 
own land, the mercy of God that will be extended to them, 
and their safety and soft and sweet repose under the 
sheltering wing of the Almighty. " For I will restore 
health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith 
the Lord; because they called thee an Outcast, saying, 
This is Zion, whom no man seeketh after." % 

* Jeremiah xxx. 9. t Jeremiah xxxiii., 25, 26. J Jeremiah xxx. 17. 



CHAPTER III. 



The Coming of Christ Jesus the Lord to sit on the Throne 
of David Contemporaneous with the Beginning of the 
Times of the Restitution of All Things. 



THIS is clearly stated in the address of Peter, an 
apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, on the day of 
Pentecost. Though it had been the subject of prophecy 
since the world began, yet not until John the Baptist did 
it begin to take head and form and give due token of the 
coming day. Isaiah had foretold it as, moved by the 
Holy Ghost, he announced the herald of Christ as the 
voice of one crying in the wilderness, " Prepare ye the 
way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway 
for our God." * He who made the world having come to 
it with the express purpose of ultimately replacing it " in a 
holy and happy state," we read : " The glory of the Lord 
shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for 
the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." t 

John the Baptist having fulfilled his mission and sealed 
his testimony with his blood, the disciples asked our Lord 
how it was that the scribes said Elijah must first come. 

* Isaiah xl. 3. t Isaiah xl. 5. 
14 



The Restitution of All Things. 1 5 

To this our Lord replied, " ' Elias truly shall first come, 
and restore all things. But I say unto you, that Elias is 
come already, and they knew him not, but have done 
unto him whatsoever they liked. Likewise shall also 
the Son of Man suffer of them.' Then the disciples 
understood that he spake unto them of John the 
Baptist. " * 

Jesus, having " suffered of them," as he said, and risen 
again, and having companied with his disciples some forty 
days after his resurrection from the dead, as he was about 
to be taken up from them into heaven, they having a 
premonition of this, " asked of him, saying, ' Lord, wilt 
thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel ? ' " f 
For it is to be distinctly understood that the restoration of 
the Jews and the restoring of all things are part and 
parcel of one great whole, and both alike depend upon 
the resurrection of Christ and " the Lord God giving unto 
him the throne of his father David, and causing him to 
reign over the house of Jacob forever." The disciples do 
not ask him if he will restore again the kingdom to Israel 
— that would have been a superfluous question, long 
since settled by the law and the prophets — but "wilt thou 
at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel ? " 

It would have been strange indeed if any doubt could 
have rested on the minds of the apostles in regard to 
restoring again the kingdom to Israel when the resur- 
rection of Christ from the dead, of which they were 
witnesses, was the proof thereof. Did not Peter himself 
declare it, citing the words of David, as we have seen, and 
saying of him that, " being a prophet, and knowing that 
God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of 
his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ 

* Matthew xvii., n, 12, 13. t Acts i. 6. 



1 6 The Coming of Christ, and 

to sit on his throne " ? * Had it not also been one of the 
great themes of prophecy, not only on the part of David 
and Jeremiah, but by Isaiah, Ezekiel and all the prophets, 
as well as by the Lord himself ? The restoration, there- 
fore, in due time, of the kingdom to Israel, Christ raised 
from the dead to sit on the throne of David, and the 
restitution of all things, form a grand and perfect triunity, 
on which hang the glory of Gocf and the fulfillment of his 
own word, spoken to Moses the servant of the Lord and 
the children of Israel in the wilderness of Sinai, after this 
wise: "But as surely as I live, all the earth shall be filled 
with the glory of the Lord." \ 

Christ Jesus the Lord having been " taken up into 
heaven," and, according to his promise, sent down the 
Holy Ghost, a new dispensation was introduced, that of 
the Gentiles, — the subject of prophecy from of old time 
by the prophets, especially Isaiah, — while the restoring of 
the kingdom to Israel was deferred to a later day. A 
long period was now to elapse ere the promised day of 
Israel should dawn upon the world. The Gentiles are 
first to accomplish their part of the work of redemption, 
"until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in." J Having 
fulfilled their appointed time, and after so long a period, 
and on so large a stage to work, " darkness still covering 
the earth and gross darkness the people," § a mightier 
power has now set in, even as a rushing flood or a 
devouring fire, to remove the darkness, to " make the 
crooked straight, and the rough places plain ; to exalt the 
valley, to bring down every mountain and hill, so that the 
glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see 
it together." || 

* Acts ii. 30. t Numbers xiv. 21. J Romans xi. 25. § Isaiah lx. 2. 
|| Isaiah xl., 4, 5. 



The Restitution of All Things. 1 7 

It was in the discourse of Peter to the men of Israel, 
suggested by the marvelous cure of "a certain man, 
lame from his mother's womb," that he was led to speak 
of the second coming of Christ as conjoined with the 
general restitution. Disclaiming all power on his part 
or that of the other disciples for the cure of the lame 
man, he took occasion to point them to Christ, by 
whose power the miracle had been performed. Upon 
this he exhorted them to repent and believe on his name, 
so that they may share in his glory when that day shall 
arrive, and when " the times of refreshing or restitution 
shall come from the presence of the Lord." * And con- 
tinuing his discourse, he says : " He shall send Jesus 
Christ, which before was preached unto you, whom the 
heaven must receive (or contain) until the times of restitu- 
tion of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth 
of all his holy prophets since the world began." f 

We learn from this that "Jesus Christ, which before 
was preached unto them," but whom they had " denied 
and killed, denying the Holy One and the Just," " whom 
God had raised from the dead," \ would remain in heaven 
— "heaven having received him" — until (this is the all- 
important, determining word) " the times of restitution of all 
things." Then he will come again ; and as we have seen, 
as King God will set him on Zion, his holy hill, and the 
time having arrived for the restoring of the kingdom to 
Israel and the beginning of a new day for our earth, what 
God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets 
since the world began will, after so long a period of 
waiting and hope, be in the course of speedy fulfillment. 

The germ of this grand and illustrious day — placing 
the world back in "a holy and happy state" — is found in 

* Acts iii. 19. t Acts iii., 20, 21. % Acts iii., 14, 15. 



1 8 The Coining of Christ, and 

the promise that the seed of the woman "shall bruise the 
serpent's head," * according as we read in the first epistle 
general of John : " For this purpose the Son of God was 
manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil." t 
The promise to Abraham is world-wide and all-embrac- 
ing : " In thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the 
earth be blessed." % As the fruit-tree yielding fruit has its 
seed in itself, so this blessing pronounced on "faithful 
Abraham," in consequence of his obedience — an obedience 
built exclusively on the word and command of God — with 
the birth of Isaac, contains in itself the life of the world. 
Before Abraham's vision stretched a world redeemed and 
brought back to God. There was nothing in the wide, 
expansive future hidden from his far-seeing eye, touched 
by the finger of God. For " the scriptures, foreseeing 
that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached 
before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, * In thee shall 
all nations be blessed.' " § This covers the whole ground 
— the birth of Isaac, the heir of promise, for "in Isaac 
shall thy seed be called ";|| the suffering of death; the 
resurrection of the body ; and that condition of our earth 
which is portrayed by Isaiah, and which is the happy 
result of Christ raised from the dead to sit on David's 
throne, as follows : " The wilderness and the solitary place 
shall be glad for them, and the desert shall rejoice and 
blossom as the rose, and the parched ground shall become 
a pool and the thirsty land springs of water; in the 
habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass with 
reeds and rushes. The wolf and the lamb shall feed 
together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock, and 
dust shall be the serpent's meat. They shall not hurt nor 

* Gen. iii. 15. t I. John iii. 8. { Genesis xii. 3 ; xxii. 18. 
§ Galatians iii. 8. || Romans ix. 7. 



The Restitution of All Things. 19 

destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord ; for the 
earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the 
waters cover the sea." * 

This is but a faint picture, though drawn by the hand 
of inspiration, of a portion of the good that is to come to 
us through the blending of those two events, Christ raised 
from the dead to sit on David's throne and the restitution 
of all things, when the great design and purpose of Christ's 
coming to our world is fully and forever consummated. 
On this ground we stand firm ; this is the rock on which 
the future kingdom of God will be built, and " the gates 
of hell " (the powers of darkness), terrible as will be the 
assault, " shall not prevail against it." 

When Christ Jesus the Lord shall take his seat on the 
throne of David, through the resurrection of the dead, 
then, and not until then, will commence "the times of 
restitution of all things." 

* Isaiah xxxv., i, 7; Ixv. 25; xi. 9. 






CHAPTER IV. 



The Kingdom of God. 



WE must now revert to the words of the angel 
Gabriel to Mary, though we have spoken of them 
before, inasmuch as they bear directly upon the subject of 
the present chapter. Words they are • of the deepest 
significance ; an announcement direct from heaven, from 
one that "stands in the presence of God." * There should 
be no play on the words. It is a message simple and pure, 
and concerns the remotest generations. It is also closely 
and inseparably associated with " the restitution of all 
things." Thus spake the angel, announcing to the virgin 
mother the birth of a son, and that "she shall call his 
name JESUS. He shall be great, and shall be called the 
Son of the Highest : and the Lord God shall give unto 
him the throne of his father David : and he shall reign 
over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there 
shall be no end." t 

A distinction should be made between " the house of 
Jacob" and "the kingdom" proper. The one is the 

* Luke i. 19. t Luke i., 31, 32, 33. 



20 



The Restitution of All Things. 2 1 

central point of light : " For out of Zion shall go forth the 
law, and. the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." * The 
other refers to the favored time when " the kingdoms of 
this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of 
his Christ" — shall form one grand, universal monarchy — 
and "the Lord Jesus Christ shall reign forever." t It is 
in this enlarged, all-comprehensive sense the term " king- 
dom " proper is to be used in the above passage, and it is 
of this Almighty rule, authority and power of which the 
prophet Zechariah speaks, when, in connection with our 
Lord's second coming, and "his feet standing on the 
Mount of 01ives,"f he says : "And the Lord shall be king 
over all the earth : in that day shall there be one Lord, 
and his name one." § 

This is no vain dream, no chimera of the brain, but a 
divine and absolute reality. Other kingdoms may rise 
and fall, governments may change, kings and rulers pass 
away, but this kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
Christ, to which all nations will give in their adhesion, will 
last forever. In proof of this — and greater proof there 
cannot be — all controversy in regard to the true and 
eternal Godhead of the Lord Jesus Christ will cease; all 
will see, in the person and humanity of Jesus, the Father; 
as he said to Philip, " he that hath seen me hath seen the 
Father," || for "in that day shall there be one Lord, and 
his name one." 

Having pointed out the true and fair distinction between 
"the house of Jacob" and "the kingdom" proper of the 
Lord Jesus Christ, which will be truly a universal kingdom 
extending throughout the whole earth, of which " the 
Lord will be king" — the supreme and mighty ruler — we 

* Isaiah ii. 3. t Revelation xi. 15. J Zechariah xiv. 4. 
§ Zechariah xiv. 9. || John xiv. 9; xii. 45. 



22 The Kingdom of God, and 

come back to the amazing announcement that " a virgin 
shall conceive and bear a son." * 

Concerning this son of miraculous conception and 
birth, whose human name is Jesus, we read these most 
remarkable words, which fill the mind with solemn awe 
and wonder, and in their import correspond with the title 
also given him of "Immanuel" — God with ns.\ "For 
unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given ; and the 
government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name 
shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, 
The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the 
increase of his government and peace there shall be no 
end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to 
order it, and to establish it with judgment and with 
justice from henceforth even forever. The zeal of the 
Lord of Hosts will perform this." % 

As if all this was so far out of the range of common, 
every-day life, so much beyond our ordinary experience, 
lying so far outside the bounds of practicability, so 
dependent upon supernatural strength and power, that we 
have the assurance from God that " the zeal of the Lord of 
Hosts will perform this" What power is it that is behind 
the throne of David and his kingdom, to order it and to 
establish it with judgment and justice, but Almighty 
power? "Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed 
garments from Bozrah ? this that is glorious in his apparel, 
traveling in the greatness of his strength ? " 

The answer is, " I that speak in righteousness, mighty to 
save." § 

This is the throne, this the kingdom, which is emblema- 
tized by "the stone cut out of the mountain without 
hands " (not by ordinary human agency) " which smote 

* Isaiah vii. 14. t Isaiah vii. 14. % Isaiah ix., 6, 7. § Isaiah lxiii. 1. 



The Restitution of All Things. 23 

the image, breaking it in pieces, dispersing it to the four 
winds, until the stone became a great mountain and filled 
the whole earth." * 

This kingdom which the God of heaven shall set up — of 
which the stone cut out of the mountain without hands, 
and which "became a great mountain and filled the whole 
earth," is a most striking emblem — is one which, unlike 
other kingdoms, not sharing their fate, "shall never be 
destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other 
people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all other 
kingdoms, and it shall stand forever." t 

In that very remarkable prophecy, common both to 
Isaiah and Micah, where many nations are represented as 
flowing to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the 
God of Jacob, we have a picture of this peaceable 
kingdom of God, when wars shall have ceased; while 
dwelling in safety, every man sits under his vine and 
under his fig-tree. While all the earth is at rest and 
breaking forth into singing, and the mountain of the Lord 
and the house of the God of Jacob is established in the 
top of the mountains, and exalted above the hills, and her 
that was cast far off has become a strong nation, we read 
that " the Lord shall reign over them in Mount Zion from 
henceforth, even forever." \ 

While thus " the Lord is king over all the earth," and 
all nations pay homage to. him and go up to the mountain 
of the Lord to learn of his ways and to walk in his paths, 
" the place of his throne, and the place of the soles of his 
feet, where the Lord will dwell in the midst of the children 
of Israel forever," § will be " Mount Zion, on the sides of 
the north, the city of the great King." || 

* Daniel ii., 34, 35. t Daniel ii. 44. \ Micah iv. 7. § Ezekiel xliii. 7. 

|| Psalm xlviii. 2. 



24 The Kingdom of God, and 

This great revolution in the condition of affairs on this 
our earth, the establishment of a fifth or universal monarchy, 
the reign of peace, Christ Jesus the Lord seated on the 
throne of his father David, and king over all the earth, — 
"a king reigning in righteousness and princes ruling in 
judgment," * is to be preceded, as we read in a prophecy 
of Isaiah, by great and terrible judgments and convulsions. 
" The Lord making the earth empty, and making it waste, 
and turning it upside down, and scattering abroad the 
inhabitants thereof, because the inhabitants thereof have 
transgressed the laws, changed the ordinances, broken the 
everlasting covenant." t 

But amid the "reeling to and fro of the earth like a 
drunkard," while the Lord ariseth to "punish the host of 
the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth 
upon the earth," while " the moon shall be confounded and 
the sun ashamed," while "the Lord ariseth to shake ter- 
ribly the earth," % amid amazing portents and terrible com- 
motions, "the Lord of hosts shall reign in Mount Zion, and 
in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously." § 

We have more or less light of the ordeal through which 
the kingdom of God must pass ere "the kingdoms of this 
world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his 
Christ," and Jesus Christ the Lord, "the Alpha and 
Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last," || 
" the faithful witness, the first begotten of the dead, and the 
prince of the kings of the earth," fl shall obtain the 
supreme control, and the will of God be done as in 
heaven so on earth, in the Revelation of Jesus Christ unto 
his servant John, the beloved of the Lord. In this book 
of mysteries, which speaks of " things which must shortly 

* Isaiah xxxii. i. t Isaiah xxiv., i, 5. \ Isaiah ii., 19, 21. 
§ Isaiah xxiv., 20, 21, 23. || Revelation xxii. 13. jf Revelation i. 5. 



The Restitution of All Things. 25 

come to pass," we are told that " in the days of the voice 
of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the 
mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to 
his servants the prophets." * 

The second woe having passed, and the third woe 
coming quickly, " the seventh angel sounded, and there 
were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this 
world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his 
Christ; and he shall reign forever and ever."f In 
attestation whereof, not as if it were a delusion of the 
fancy, but a plain matter of fact, an actuality, a thing of 
flesh and blood, sure beyond all peradventure of accom- 
plishment, we read that " the four and twenty elders, which 
sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces and 
worshiped God, saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord 
God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come, 
because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast 
reigned." % 

The time of wrath having come, and that God 
"shouldst destroy them which destroy the earth," wonder 
follows- wonder, judgment succeeds to judgment, swiftly 
the end draws nigh, " the nations are angry," § until " the 
seventh angel poured out his vial filled up with the last of 
the seven plagues into the air ; and a great voice out of 
the temple of heaven, from the throne, was heard, saying, 
It is done." II 

In effect the work is done. The kingdoms of this world 
have in reality become " the kingdoms of our Lord, and 
of his Christ; and he shall reign forever." The mystery 
of God is finished ; the end has come. Jesus is crowned 
" Lord of all " and " the kingdom of God " is established 

* Revelation x. 7. t Revelation xi., 14, 15. % Revelation xi., 16, 17. 
§ Revelation xi. 18. || Revelation xvi., 16, 17. 



26 The Kingdom of God, and 

for evermore. And we read, John declaring or reciting 
his vision : " And I heard as it were the voice of a great 
multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the 
voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the 
Lord God omnipotent reigneth." * 

Indeed, it would appear that the main design of this 
book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ, wrapped, as much 
of it is, in mysterious symbols, is intended to describe step 
by step, as the opening of the first of the seven seals 
unfolds (the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, 
having prevailed to open the book), how the Lord Jesus 
went forth "conquering and to conquer," under the 
expressive symbol of one " seated on a white horse, with a 
bow in his hand and a crown on his head." t The seven 
seals are opened, the seven trumpets sound and the seven 
last plagues are poured forth, until at the close of 
successive judgments, "woe" following "woe," and falling 
upon "the inhabiters of the earth," \ heaven is opened to 
the view of the revelator, "and behold, a white horse; 
and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, 
and in righteousness he doth judge and make war." § 

The description given leaves no doubt upon the mind 
as to the person symbolized who was seated upon a white 
horse ; it is none other than " the King of Kings and 
Lord of Lords." || And now, in the fullest, deepest 
sense, the mystery of God is evolved, Jesus the conqueror 
reigns, and "the kingdom of God" has "come" indeed, 
and is crowned forever "with glory and power." 

When, therefore, our Lord Jesus teaches us to say, " Thy 
kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth as it is in 
heaven " ; and also to say, " Thine is the kingdom, the power 

Revelation xix. 6. t Revelation vi. 2. \ Revelation viii. 13. 
§ Revelation xix. it. || Revelation xix. t6. 






The Restitution of All Things. 27 

and glory," — they are not to be regarded as a mere form of 
words — they mean what they express, neither more nor 
less than that outward, visible kingdom of God, which is 
to supersede, in a certain sense, all the kingdoms of the 
earth, of which Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, is 
to be the sole and absolute potentate — King of Kings 
and Lord of Lords. As a guarantee and pledge of this 
coming kingdom, to be set up here on this earth, we have 
the solemn oath and word of Almighty God; and as a 
confirmation thereof, combined with what all the holy 
prophets have written, we have the most incontestable of 
all facts, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 
a fact which lies at the foundation of all revealed religion, 
and is the last as it is the sure and unfailing hope of our 
world. This gone, there is nothing left us on which to lean, 
but there is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. 
But while this blessed hope of the glorious appearing of 
the great God and our Saviour Jesus is sure, we may bid 
farewell to every fear, and look forward to a world 
regenerated, beautified and beatified by the visible 
presence, power and glory of our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
Christ, the world's mighty Deliverer. 






THE PROMISED DAY OF ISRAEL. 



CHAPTER I. 



The Coming of Christ Jesus the Lord to Sit on the 
Throne of David Idetitical with the Conversion of the 
Jews. 



PERHAPS we hazard something in saying this, and 
yet possibly the testimony of God's holy word will 
bear us out in it. At all events, one thing is certain — the 
Jews as a people will turn to the Lord and seek salvation; 
and great will be the part they will play in " filling the 
world with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the 
waters cover the sea." * 

In the course of his ministry and during his last, visit to 
Jerusalem, after bewailing the fate of the city, over which 
so dark a cloud was soon to rest in consequence of their 
rejection of him, quoting that passage in the scriptures 
as applying to himself, " The stone which the builders 
rejected, the same is become the head of the corner," f 
our blessed Lord pityingly says, " Ye shall not see me 
henceforth till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in 

* Isaiah xi. 9. f Matthew xxi. 42 ; Psalm cxviii. 22. 

3i 



32 The Promised Day of Israel. 

the name of the Lord."* Thereby clearly intimating that 
instead of disallowing him as now, and joining in the cry, 
" Let him be crucified," the scene would be strangely 
changed, and with one voice, seeing Jesus coming in the 
clouds of heaven, with power and great glory, and recog- 
nizing him as their once rejected and crucified Messiah, 
they would exclaim, sorrow and joy mingling in the sad 
but joyful cry, " Blessed is he that cometh in the name of 
the Lord." 

This is pictured forth in the passage where it says, 
speaking of the second coming of Christ, " Behold, he 
cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him; and 
they also which pierced him." Reasoning from analogy 
and drawing our conclusion from the words of Christ, 
what perturbation of heart, what rending of the vail which 
hath so long hidden Jesus from their eyes, will this 
amazing and heart-piercing sight instantaneously produce. 
As in the case of Saul of Tarsus, the persecutor and 
blasphemer, the scales will fall from their darkened eyes, 
conviction of their ignorance and error will seize upon 
their wounded hearts, and beholding the marks of the 
nails in his hands and feet, and the open wound in his 
pierced side made by the soldier's spear, they will say, " My 
Lord and my God." And the long since spoken words of 
Isaiah will come true : "A nation shall be born at once ; for 
as soon as Zion travailed she brought forth children." t 

This cry of grief, this anguish of soul, extorted by the 
sight of their once crucified Lord, is reiterated, as we 
read in the prophecy of Zechariah to this effect : "In 
that day, when there shall be a fountain opened in the 
house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin 
and uncleanness," % and God " shall pour upon the house 

* Matthew xxiii. 39. t Isaiah lxvi. 8. \ Zechariah xiii. 1. 



The Promised Day of Israel. 33 

of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit 
of grace and of supplications," even, as it would seem, as 
on the great day of Pentecost, " in that day they shall look 
upon him whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for 
him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitter- 
ness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born." * 

The mourning, so deep, so bitter, like as when one 
mourneth for an only son, at the sight of him who was 
crucified, will not be confined to comparatively a small 
number, as on the day of Pentecost, but it will extend 
from city to country and throughout the whole land. It 
will reach every household and every individual of the 
household. " In that day shall there be a great mourning 
in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon" (when 
the good king Josiah was slain) " in the valley of Megiddon. 
And the land shall mourn, every family apart; ... all 
the families that remain, every family apart, and their wives 
apart." t 

To give, if possible, greater reality to the scene, to 
stamp it with the signature divine, to show that we are 
not dealing in fiction but in verity, the names of the 
heads of certain families, the most distinguished in the 
land, are mentioned as participating in the common grief, 
as, for instance : " The family of the house of David 
apart, and their wives apart : the family of the house of 
Nathan apart, and their wives apart : the family of the 
house of Levi apart, and their wives apart : the family of 
Shimei apart, and their wives apart." \ 

Among the accompaniments of this scene of wailing 
and mourning, this irrepressible and bitter crying on the 
part of the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusa- 
lem and all the people of the land, apart, each one by 

* Zechariah xii. 10. t Zechariah xii., n, 12, 14. \ Jeremiah xii. 12. 



34 The Promised Day of Israel. 

himself, as if their hearts would break with grief, as they 
look upon him whom they have pierced, "coming from 
heaven in like manner as the twelve disciples had seen 
him go into heaven," * once more " the feet of the Lord 
Jesus shall stand upon the Mount of Olives, which is 
before Jerusalem on the east." At his touch " the 
mountain cleaves asunder toward the east and toward the 
west, and a very great valley is formed ; and half of the 
mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it 
toward the south." f Amid the terror occasioned by the 
cleaving of the mountain as if by a mighty earthquake, 
we read, according to the words of the prophet, " The 
Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with thee." £ 

Obscure as this to a greater or less extent is, to our 
feeble vision, yet the reality of it is assured by the great 
change which takes place in the lay of the land in the 
vicinity of Jerusalem. "All the land shall be turned as a 
plain from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem; and 
the city shall be built to the Lord from the tower of 
Hananeel unto the gate of the corner. And the whole 
valley of the dead bodies, and of the ashes, and all the 
fields unto the brook of Kidron, unto the corner of the 
horse gate toward the east, shall be holy unto the Lord. 
And men shall dwell in it, and there shall be no more 
utter destruction ; but Jerusalem shall be safely in- 
habited." § 

As an assurance of the great deliverance that shall 
come to Israel at this time from their sincere and deep 
humiliation and repentance (as was the case with Nineveh, 
God, at the preaching of Jonah upon their repentance, 
reversing his decree), we have these words of the future 

* Acts i. ii. t Zechariah xiv. 4. \ Zechariah xiv. 5. 
§ Compare Zechariah xiv., 10, 11, with Jeremiah xxxi., 38, 39, 40. 






The Promised Day of Israel. 35 

nationality and consequent prosperity and greatness of 
Israel from the Lord of the whole earth. And from the 
context we learn that it is under the new covenant and 
in the last days, when "the Lord shall have raised unto 
David a righteous Branch, and a king shall reign and 
prosper," that this great change shall take place; "and this 
is the name whereby he shall be called, The Lord our 
Righteousness." * 

It is in the days to come, when one man shall not have 
to say to his neighbor, Know the Lord : for they shall all 
know Him, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, 
we learn that if the ordinances of day and night can depart 
from before me, saith the Lord, or heaven above can be 
measured, or the foundations of the earth searched out, 
"then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a 
nation before me forever; and I will also cast off all the 
seed of Israel for all that they have done." f 

We are not to measure the pitifulness of the Lord by 
our pitifulness. Stephen, when dying, stoned to death for 
his fidelity to Christ and confession of his dear name, 
said: " Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." % At the 
same time what stinging words did he say to his perse- 
cutors and murderers, while his heart was overflowing 
with love to them. " Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised 
in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost ; as 
your fathers did, so do ye."§ On the cross this was the 
prayer which fell from the lips of Jesus as he was about to 
"give up the ghost." "Father, forgive them; for they 
know not what they do." || The apostle Peter, charging 
the Jews with killing the Prince of Life, immediately adds 
these words: "And now, brethren, I wot that through 

* Jeremiah xxiii., 5, 6. I Jeremiah xxxi., 34, 35, 36, 37. + Acts vii. 60. 

§ Acts vii. 51. || Luke xxiii. 34. 






36 The Promised Day of Israel. 

ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers."* So the 
apostle Paul, speaking of Christ and of his death upon the 
cross, says of those elders and princes of Israel who 
were chiefly concerned in it that they knew not what they 
did, " for had they known it, they would not have crucified 
the Lord of glory." f And now we hear through the 
mouth of his servant Jeremiah the asseveration of the 
Lord Almighty that, notwithstanding "all that they have 
done," " denying the Holy One and the Just, and desiring 
a murderer to be granted unto them," \ the Lord our God 
"will never cast off all the seed of Israel; and also that the 
seed of Israel shall never cease from being a nation before 
him."§ In confirmation whereof, at the appearing of 
the Lord's Christ the Lord our God pours upon his 
murderers and persecutors " the spirit of grace and suppli- 
cations; and they look upon him whom they have pierced, 
and mourn for him as one mourneth for his only son, and 
are in bitterness for him as one that is in bitterness for his 
first-born." 

It is on this ground the apostle Paul tells us he found 
mercy, unto whom Jesus appeared on his way to Damas- 
cus, as we learn from himself. "And last of all he was 
seen of me also, as of one born out of due time."|| I, "who 
was before a blasphemer and a persecutor and injurious, 
obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly, in unbelief." fl 

So when, according to the prophecy of Zechariah, "the 
Lord my God shall come, and all his saints with him," 
the chosen seed of Israel, mourning with a great mourn- 
ing, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of 
Megiddon, will obtain mercy because what they have 
done has been in a sense ignorantly, in unbelief; and 

* Acts hi. 17. tl. Corinthians ii. 8. J Acts hi. 14. § Jeremiah xxxi., 36, 37. 
|| I. Corinthians xv. 8. H" I. Timothy i. 13. 



The Promised Day of Israel. 37 

the prayer of Jesus, after the lapse of all these years, 
will be answered : " Father, forgive them ; for they know 
not what they do." 

That the coming of Christ and the salvation of Israel 
are identical is evident from the language of St. Paul, 
and that the one would not take place before the other, 
and that " the vail which is upon their heart when Moses 
is read will not be taken away until then," * is also equally 
plain. " I would not, brethren," says this vindicator of 
his people, though in an especial manner chosen of God 
as the chief apostle to the Gentiles, " that ye should be 
ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your 
own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to 
Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in" f or, as 
it is expressed by our Lord, "until the ti?nes of the Gentiles 
be fulfilled." \ When this time shall have fully arrived, 
"the times of the Gentiles having been fulfilled," the 
promised day of Israel will dawn upon the world. But 
what a day! "There shall come out of Zion the 
Deliverer," (who is this but he that cometh from Edom, 
with dyed garments from Bozrah ?) "the Redeemer," "and 
shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob ; and so all Israel 
shall be saved ; for this is my covenant unto them, when I 
shall take away their sins." § 

The Redeemer coming to Zion is but another mode of 
expressing the return of Christ to our earth, whom "the 
heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all 
things." As a marked proof of this, and showing that 
Christ the Lord is about to "take unto him his great 
power and reign," we have these most expressive words of 
Isaiah, interwoven with the salvation of Israel and the 

* II. Corinthians iii., 15, 16. t Romans xi. 25. j Luke xxi. 24. 
§ Romans xi., 26, 27. 



38 The Promised Day of Israel. 

turning away of ungodliness from Jacob : " Awake, 
awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake, 
as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art 
thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the 
dragon ? Art thou not it which hath dried the sea, the 
waters of the great deep ; that hath made the depths of 
the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over ? Therefore 
the redeemed of the Lord shall return, and come with 
singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their 
head: they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and 
mourning shall flee away." * 

Here we see the same power at work that ransomed 
Israel at first ; which opened a way out of Egypt, as God 
promised Jacob when he went down into the land with 
all his household, and consummated their deliverance by 
dividing the waters of the Red Sea and causing his people 
to pass safely over as on dry land, while Pharaoh and his 
hosts, essaying to pass over, were drowned by the return 
of the whelming waters. It is the same Almighty hand 
to-day as yesterday, only now the deliverance is final, the 
joy complete, the triumph perfected, and sorrow will 
return no more. 

It is to be observed in regard to the long alienation of 
the children of Israel from tho God of their fathers, — for in 
opposing and rejecting Christ, however unwittingly on 
their part, they oppose and reject God, "resisting the 
Holy Ghost," — this blindness, this hardness, is judicial 
in its character, and must remain until a given or 
appointed time. This is expressly stated by the apostle 
Paul : " I would not have you, brethren, to be ignorant of 
this mystery" — he is now addressing the Gentiles — "that 
blindness in part" — it is not total and complete — "is 
happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be 

* Isaiah li., 9, 10, 11. 



The Promised Day of Israel. 



39 



come in." He does this to put them on their guard, 
"lest they should be wise in their own conceit," and 
vainly imagine that to them belongs the great work, 
exclusively, of " filling the world with the knowledge 
of God." There is no guarantee for this in holy 
scriptures. This work is reserved for the Jews in the 
highest, deepest and most enlarged sense. As they began 
it, so is it reserved for them to complete it. The world 
owes them its greatest debt — a debt which can never be 
fully repaid. And to them will belong the rapture, and 
the glory, and the blessedness, " when it shall turn to the 
Lord, and the vail shall have been taken away,"* "to 
turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call 
upon the name of the Lord, to serve him with one 
consent." f 

* II. Corinthians iii. 16. t Zephaniah iii. 9. 



CHAPTER II. 



The Fullness of Israel. 



IN the prophecy of Isaiah there are twelve chapters — 
beginning with the twenty-fourth and ending with the 
thirty-fifth inclusive — that belong exclusively to Israel, 
and to some extent with its relation to the world at large. 
It is a book within a book; clear, united, compact. It 
— this book within a book — consists, for the most part, 
of denunciations and threatenings against " the rebellious 
children, that take counsel, but not of me, saith the 
Lord; and that cover with a covering, but not of my 
Spirit, that they may add sin to sin." * 

In the very commencement of the prophecy we have a 
sad and most gloomy picture of the condition of the land, 
though then in the height of its prosperity, as seen 
through the glass of prophecy. It is also a time of 
general trouble ; and the land of Israel, with the rest of 
the world, staggers under the blow, for " the transgression 

* Isaiah xxx. i. 

40 






The Promised Day of Israel. 41 

thereof is heavy upon it." But while "the curse is 
devouring the earth, and all joy is darkened," and it would 
seem indeed as if "the earth is mourning and fading 
away," the sun darkening, and the moon not giving her 
light — or, as it reads in the text, " the moon confounded, 
and the sun ashamed," — at the close of the trouble the 
scene suddenly shifts, a great change takes place, and, in 
this critical and decisive hour, we read, " The Lord of hosts 
shall reign in Moimt Zion and in Jerusalem, and before 
his ancients gloriously." # 

Throughout the entire prophecy, judgment is strangely 
mingled with love and mercy; love pleading for forgive- 
ness, and deprecating wrath and punishment; but love, 
after wrath hath spent itself, and just punishment been 
inflicted, ultimately rejoicing over judgment, like the 
bowels of Joseph yearning over his guilty brethren; but, 
as if he stood in God's place, frowning darkly and speak- 
ing roughly, and treating them harshly, until he brought 
their sin to their remembrance, aroused their conscience, 
filled them with grief and fear and torment for the great 
crime they had long ago committed, and superinduced 
that genuine sorrow and repentance which is followed by 
amendment of life, and the bestowment of God's par- 
doning love and mercy, and the sweet assurance of his 
most gracious and life-giving favor. Then comes the 
consolation, as in the case of Joseph with his repenting 
brethren ; and, to soothe them still more, an explanation 
is given of the design and purpose of God in permitting 
and even foreshadowing all this evil. 

In the course of this extended but connected prophecy 
relating to Israel, we have various and striking exemplifi- 
cations or illustrations, as set forth in the behavior of 

* Isaiah xxiv. 23. 



42 The Promised Day of Israel. 

Joseph toward his brethren, of this seemingly harsh and 
severe, but really tender and loving trait in the Divine 
character. The prophet, looking forward into the dark 
future, says of Jerusalem, "Yet the defensed city shall be 
desolate and the habitation forsaken, and left like a 
wilderness: there shall the calf feed, and there shall he 
lie down and consume the branches thereof : . . . for it is a 
people of no understanding : therefore he that made them 
will not have mercy on them, and he that formed them 
will show them no favor." * 

Yet, as if in direct contradiction to the above — but we 
must recollect how many centuries intervene — it is imme- 
diately subjoined: "And it shall come to pass in that 
day " (referring to the day of the Lord Jesus) " that the 
Lord shall beat off from the channel of the river unto the 
stream of Egypt, and ye shall be gathered one by one, O 
ye children of Israel. And it shall come to pass in that 
day " (the day of the Lord of hosts) " that the great 
trumpet shall be blown, f and they shall come " (the 
children of Israel) "which were ready to perish in 
the land of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of 
Egypt, and shall worship the Lord in the holy mount at 
Jerusalem." \ 

In a similar strain, while referring also to the invasion 
of Judea, and the desolation of the land, and the spoil 
of the spoiler, in after years, we read : " Upon the land 
of my people shall come up thorns and briers; yea, upon 
all the houses of joy in the joyous city: because the 
palaces shall be forsaken ; the multitude of the city oL:all 
be left ; the forts and towers shall be for dens forever , a 
joy of wild asses, a pasture of flocks." § 

* Isaiah xxvii., 10, n. 1 Revelation xi. 15. \ Isaiah xxvii., 12, f-j 

§ Isaiah xxxii., 13, 14. 



The Promised Day of Israel. 43 

Yet, not forever, in the strictest sense of the word, 
but evidently embracing a very long period of time, for 
it is immediately added — the prophet Isaiah looking 
forward to the great and glorious future of the children 
of Israel — desolation, wandering, and mourning, mean- 
while being their heritage : " Until the Spirit be poured 
upon us from on high, and the wilderness be a fruitful 
field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest; then 
judgment shall dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness 
remain in the fruitful field; and the work of righteousness 
shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness quietness 
and assurance forever." * 

Yet again, while " woe " is denounced " to the crown 
of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim " (Ephraim chosen 
of Jacob before Manasseh by immediate inspiration of 
the Almighty), " whose glorious beauty is a fading flower, 
shall be trodden under foot " ; because " the Lord hath a 
mighty and strong one, which as a tempest of hail and a 
destroying storm, as a flood of mighty waters overflowing," 
shall cast down to the earth the crown of pride and make 
the land bare and desolate, — the reverse of the picture is 
the very opposite of this. The prophet Isaiah, from the 
mount of vision, like Moses from the top of Nebo, 
surveying the glory of Israel in far-off coming days, says 
of them : " In that day shall the Lord of hosts be for a 
crown of glory, and for a diadem of beauty, unto the 
residue of his people, and for a spirit of judgment to 
him that sitteth in judgment, and for strength to them 
that turn the battle to the gate." f 

So, as we follow on, marking the various striking 
changes of the prophecy, while the background of the 
picture is darkness, the foreground gleams with light, and 

* Isaiah xxxii., 15, 16, 17. t Isaiah xxviii., 1-6. 



44 The Promised Day of Israel. 

shines with the glory of the Lord. The voice may cry, 
"Woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where David dwelt! I 
will distress Ariel, and there shall be heaviness and 
sorrow ; and thou shalt be visited of the Lord of hosts 
with thunder, and with earthquake, and great noise, with 
storm and tempest, and the flame of devouring fire." * 
Surely one would be ready to say : Alas ! for Ariel, Ariel, 
the city where David dwelt. But ere long we read: 
" And therefore will the Lord wait, that he may be 
gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that 
he may have mercy upon you; for the Lord is a God 
of judgment : blessed are all they that wait for him. 
For the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem; thou 
shalt weep no more : he will be very gracious unto thee 
at the voice of thy cry; when he shall hear it, he will 
answer thee." t 

And, even at the last, when " the Lord cometh out of 
his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their 
iniquity, and the earth shall disclose her blood, and shall 
no more cover her slain " ; % when " the indignation of 
the Lord is upon all nations, and his fury is upon all 
their armies " ; § even then, when " the indignation is 
overpast," || God's ancient and dear people, beloved for 
the father's sake, having entered into his chambers, 
and been hidden from the avenging storm ; fl yet will 
they step forth as it were upon a new earth, and behold 
a new creation, as Noah when he came forth from the 
ark, and beheld the sweet earth and blessed land once 
more. And now we are told of the children of Israel, in 
a most especial manner — the children of the most high 
God — " their warfare accomplished and their iniquity 

* Isaiah xxix., i, 2, 6. t Isaiah xxx., 18, 19. % Isaiah xxvi. 21. 

§ Isaiah xxxiv. 2. || Isaiah xxvi. 20. tf Isaiah xxvi. 20. 



The Promised Day of Israel. 45 

pardoned," * that " the wilderness and solitary place shall 
be glad for them, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom 
as the rose. .It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice 
even with joy and singing : the glory of Lebanon shall be 
given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon ; they 
shall see the glory of the Lord and the excellency of our 
God. And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and 
come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their 
heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow 
and sighing shall flee away."f 

Such is the golden future, according to God's most holy 
word, that opens upon the children of Israel, notwith- 
standing all that they have done in the past, or may now 
be doing against Christ and his holy name ; " the vail 
not having been taken away, but even wito this day is still 
on their heart when Moses is read." J And this agrees 
with what in the preceding chapter was said of them, — 
this highly favored people of the Most High, — that "if 
heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of 
the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the 
seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the 
Lord."§ 

Hosea, the most tender-hearted and loving of prophets, 
while not blind to the sins of his people, nor sparing of 
reproach, not hiding their vileness, yet is full of the 
kindest and tenderest remonstrances, and assures them 
that God " will heal their backslidings, and love them 
freely, if they will return unto the Lord their God ; for 
they have fallen by their iniquity," || upon their "taking 
with them words, and turning to the Lord, and saying 
unto him: Take away all iniquity, and receive us 

* Isaiah xl. 2. t Isaiah xxxv., 1, 2, 10. % II. Corinthians rii., 15, 16. 
§ Jeremiah xxxi. 37. || Hosea xiv., 4, 1. 



|6 The Promised Day of Israel. 

graciously ; so will we render the calves of our lips " ; * 
then come the gracious and all-restoring and life-giving 
words, " I will be as the dew unto Israel ; he shall grow 
as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. His 
branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive 
tree, and his smell as Lebanon. They that dwell under 
his shadow shall return; they shall revive as the corn, 
and grow as the vine ; the scent thereof shall be as the 
wine of Lebanon. Ephraim shall say, What have I to 
do any more with idols ? I have heard him, and observed 
him : I am like a green fir tree. From me is thy fruit 
found." f 

But not only negatively, as the recipient of God's 
pardoning love and favoring smile, are we to speak of 
" the fullness of Israel," as predicated by the voice of the 
prophets, but in a positive and most absolute sense are we 
to affirm that the Lord their God "shall cause them that 
come of Jacob to take root; Israel shall blossom and bud, 
and fill the face of the world with fruit." $ 

It was by Jacob's well, in his conversation with the 
woman of Samaria, that Jesus made that ever-memorable 
saying, "Salvation is of the Jews"\ Not, indeed, in 
any restrictive sense, as confined to the one simple fact 
that "as concerning the flesh, Christ came of the fathers," || 
but in the broadest and most enlarged sense, as interpreted 
by Isaiah when he said that "it shall come to pass in the 
last days all nations shall flow unto the mountain of the 
Lord's house; "fl or as our Lord said when he commissioned 
his disciples, after his resurrection from the dead, " that 
repentance and remission of sins should be preached in 
his name among all nations ', beginning at Jerusalem."** 

* Hosea xiv. 2. t Hosea xiv. 5-8. % Isaiah xxvii. 6. § John iv. 22. 
[| Romans ix. 5. fi Isaiah ii. 2. ** Luke xxiv. 47. 



The Promised Day of Israel. 47 

As to the Gentiles, at a conference in Jerusalem of the 
apostles and elders presided over by James, this apostle, 
in his official relation, clearly defines the circle in which 
they were to move; chiefly that "they were to take out of 
them a people for his name." * And in doing this, to 
show whereunto the Gentiles were called, he quoted from 
the prophet Amos, producing the whole of this particular 
prophecy from its especial bearing upon the calling of the 
Gentiles, and citing Simon Peter's testimony on this point 
as setting the question completely at rest : " Simon Peter 
hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, 
to take out of them a people for his na??ie." And to this 
agree the words of the prophets ; as it is written, " After 
this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of 
David, which is fallen down, and I will build again the 
ruins thereof, and I will set it up \ that the residue of men 
might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whoi?i 
my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these 
things." f 

The purpose of God, who doeth all these things, having 
been accomplished in taking out from among the Gentiles a 
people for his name, and "the times of the Gentiles having 
been fulfilled," according to the words of our Lord 
himself, he turns to Israel of old for the perfect and 
literal fulfillment of the Abrahamic promise, made, if 
possible, more significant and express after Abraham, in 
obedience to the divine command, had not withheld his 
only son Isaac (the heir of promise, upon whom the fate 
of the world depended) from offering him as a burnt 
offering upon Mount Moriah, the holy spot where the 
typical offering of Christ, " the Lamb of God which taketh 
away the sin of the world," was for so many centuries 

* Acts xv. 14. t Acts xv., 16, 17; Amos ix., ir, 12. 



48 The Promised Day oj Israel. 

daily offered and consumed on the altar of burnt-offering. 
After such an exhibition of a faith by which " the world 
was overcome," * God pronounced this blessing upon 
Abraham and his seed, reproduced and enunciated by our 
Lord Christ when, in his discourse with the woman of 
Samaria by Jacob's well, he said " Salvation is of the 
Jews " : " By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for 
because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld 
thy son, thine only son, that in blessing I will bless thee, 
and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of 
the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore ; 
and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies ; and in 
thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, 
because thou hast obeyed my voice." t 

Here is a promise as broad as the round globe and as 
full as the moon when she rides in her glory in the mid- 
heavens, shining on all below, having filled her horns, and 
after the lapse of centuries, and wandering from the true 
and right way, Israel, the beloved of God, "abiding no 
longer in unbelief, are graffed into their own olive-tree 
(for God is able to graff them in again)," f according to 
the promise made to Abraham and renewed to Isaac and 
Jacob, " all the nations of the earth shall be blessed " in 
and through and by them; for "salvation," in all its 
mighty depth and fullness, its " streams the whole creation 
reaching" and "filling the earth with the glory of the 
Lord," "is of the Jews." 

In the following passages from Isaiah, while the 
language, toward the close, is somewhat metaphorical, 
yet it conveys an absolute truth, and is in harmony with 
the promise made to Abraham when he first entered 
Canaan, having, at the command of God, left " his 

* I. John v. 4. \ Genesis xxii., 16, 17, i3. J Romans xi. 23. 



The Promised Day of Israel. 49 

kindred and his father's house," that " in thee shall all 
families of the earth be blessed." * " The captive exile 
hasteneth that he may be loosed, and that he should not 
die in the pit, nor that his bread should fail. But I am 
the Lord thy God, that divided the sea, whose waves 
roared: The Lord of Hosts is his name. And I have 
put my words in thy mouth, and I have covered thee in 
the shadow of my hand, that I may plant the heavens 
and lay the foundations of the earth, and say unto Zion, 
Thou art my people." f 

But nothing can be more to the purpose, more direct, 
more absolute, more convincing, than the words of St. 
Paul — himself a Jew of the highest type — on a subject 
so vital, so deeply interesting as this. We all know who 
they were that, under the inspiration of the Almighty, gave 
the first impulse to Christianity ; that they were the twelve 
chosen Apostles, with some one hundred and twenty 
disciples, including the women. And also that it was 
Peter who, instructed of God in a vision, first opened 
among his countrymen the door to the Gentiles — strong 
as were their prejudices against any intercommunica- 
tion with strangers. The Gentiles, once admitted within 
the sacred inclosure, soon gained the preponderance, while 
the Jews gradually fell off, until those who had heralded 
the gospel of Christ arrayed themselves early against it, 
and have so continued to this day. In this way " the 
diminishing of the Jews was the riches of the Gentiles." 
But, as we have already seen, the blindness of God's 
ancient people, embraced within the world-wide promise of 
Abraham, was but partial, not total, and was to continue 
no longer than until the " set time," when " the fullness 
of the Gentiles be come in." Then, and not until then, 

* Genesis xii. 3. t Isaiah li., 14, 15, 16. 



50 The Promised Day of Israel. 

" Shiloh having come," through Judab (" Judah is a lion's 
whelp — stooping down, couching as a lion, and as an 
old lion ; who shall rouse him up ? ") " unto Shiloh shall 
the gathering of the people be." * This agrees, as also 
we have already seen, with the prophets, as it is written : 
"After this I will return, and will build again the taber- 
nacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build 
again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up, that the 
residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the 
Gentiles upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, 
who doeth all these things." f 

To the same effect and with an emphasis not to be 
gainsaid, Paul announces the coming "fullness" of his 
people, his "kinsmen according to the flesh." "Have 
they stumbled that they should fall ? God forbid." He 
then proceeds to sum up his cause in behalf of his people. 
" Now, if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and 
the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles, how 
much more their fullness ? For if the casting away of 
them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the 
receiving of them be, but life from the dead ? " % 

* Genesis xlix. 10. t Acts xv., 15, 16. + Romans xi., 12, 15 



CHAPTER III. 



The New Covenant which the Lord will make with the 
House of Israel. 



IN the coming history of the Israelites, on which so 
much depends, so big with the most momentous 
results to our world, it would almost seem as if three great 
events — the coming of Christ, the reinstatement of the 
Jews in their own land, and the adoption of the new 
covenant which the Lord will make with the house of 
Israel — are nearly, if not quite, coincident. At all events 
the connection between them is so close that it is not 
easy to separate them ; the identification of them from the 
scriptures, as we impartially read them, would appear to 
be complete. Following this chain of events, the Gentiles, 
who for so long a period have been chiefly instrumental in 
promoting the work of God — the evangelization of the 
world — though on the whole they have fallen far short of 
carrying it forward in the spirit in which it was begun, 
will yield their place in a greater or less degree to the 
Jews, to whom it will appertain to perfect that which their 
fathers began. 

51 



52 The Promised Day of Israel. 

The grand means to this end is that which forms the 
burden of this chapter. Nothing to the purpose is so 
pertinent as this. It is not so much what they are, as 
what they will be under the transforming power of God. 
We know what that power did at the first when the day 
of Pentecost had fully come, when there came "a sound 
from heaven as of a rushing, mighty wind, and it filled all 
the house where they were sitting.' * This sound as of a 
rushing, mighty wind was the power of God — that power 
which changes men's natures, renews them " in the 
spirit of their mind," and so transforms them that from 
bearing the image of the earthly they bear the image of 
the heavenly. The stamp is genuine. The signature is 
divine. It cannot be imitated; neither, with those who 
are truly indoctrinated, taught and led of Christ, can the 
false pass for that which is genuine. It is pure gold, 
transparent as the bending sky. 

How was this shown, how legibly written by those 
apostles and early disciples who, on that day of days and 
following days, received the gift of the Holy Ghost, not 
so much by the miracle of tongues bestowed on those, 
both men and women, and for aught we know on children 
also, who until then knew no language but their own, but 
by that last, best gift of love divine, which filled and 
overflowed their disburdened hearts? Their lives — their 
holy lives — were known and read of all men, and needed 
not an audible voice; their silence spoke louder than 
words : like the voice of nature which, in its silence and 
stillness, with a holy awe resting on the mind as we sur- 
vey the vault of heaven, proclaims the glory of God. 

So it will be with their successors in the time of their 
coming "fullness," and when "the receiving of them will 
be as life from the dead." How strong, how expressive 

* Acts ii. 2. 



The Promised Day of Israel. 53 

the language. If the diminishing of them was the riches 
of the Gentiles, what a wave of glory will flow over the 
world from their fullness ! Not so much because of their 
zeal — though this will be intense — as because of their 
love. In them will the world behold all the Christian 
graces and virtues, which so adorned and distinguished 
their fathers ; and they will revive and spread the savor of 
a Saviour's name to earth's remotest bounds. " This shall 
be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; 
after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in 
their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and will be 
their God, and they shall be my people." * 

Ezekiel speaks to the same intent. "A new heart also 
will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you : 
and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, 
and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my 
spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, 
and ye shall keep my judgments and do them." f 

That this, in its most extensive sense, refers not so much 
to time past — to any period in their former history — as 
to the time to come, to the latter days, in the strict sense 
of the word, is evident from its embracing the whole 
nation, making the knowledge of God in all its incon- 
ceivable fullness, depth, power and glory common to all, 
high and low, great and small, a national and universal 
heritage. Thus it reads: "And they" (the house of 
Israel, in whose hearts God has put his law, so that it is a 
part of themselves, of their very being) "shall teach no 
more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, 
saying, Know the Lord ; for they shall all know me, from 
the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the 
Lord : for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remem- 
ber their sin no more." % 

* Jeremiah xxxi. 33. t Ezekiel xxxvi., 26, 27. | Jeremiah xxxi. 34. 



54 The Promised Day of Israel. 

This agrees with what we read elsewhere of the glory 
and splendor of the days to come, where the Lord says 
of them : " I will lay thy stones with fair colors, and lay 
thy foundations with sapphires, and I will make thy 
windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy 
borders of pleasant stones."* And then literalizes the 
whole by giving it this substantial signification and 
showing its agreement and connection with what has 
been just said: "And all thy children shall be taught 
of the Lord: and great shall be the peace of thy 
children." t 

So also in another place we read to the same effect in 
regard to God's ancient people, and their knowledge of 
himself and his righteousness so deep, so uniform, so 
consistent, reflecting as it will the glory of the Lord, 
flowing from that knowledge. " Thy people " (it is the 
Lord who speaks) " also shall be all righteous ; they shall 
inherit the land forever, the branch of my planting, the 
work of my hands, that I may be glorified." % 

It is most curious to observe the close connection 
which exists between the new covenant which the Lord 
will make with the house of Israel, putting his law in their 
inward parts and writing it in their hearts, " making them 
new creatures in Christ Jesus," and their return and 
reinstatement in their own land. This, in itself, stamps 
the genuineness of the work which God will have wrought 
in them, while it prepares them for the occupancy of the 
land in the same spirit of faith and holy living and 
obedience to the divine command as the fathers to whom 
it was given as an everlasting possession. Thus we have 
along with the new covenant this gracious promise : 
" Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel ; As yet 
they shall use this speech in the land of Judah and in the 

* Isaiah liv., n, 12. T Isaiah liv. 13. \ Isaiah lx. si. 



The Promised Day of Israel. 55 

cities thereof, when I shall bring again their captivity; 
The Lord bless thee, O habitation of justice and mountain 
of holiness. Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that 
I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah 
with the seed of man and with the seed of beast. And it 
shall come to pass that like as I have watched over them, 
to pluck up and to break down, and to throw down and 
to destroy and to afflict, so will I watch over them, to 
build and to plant, saith the Lord." * 

In the prophecy of Ezekiel, with "the new heart that 
God will give the house of Israel and the new spirit that 
he will put within them," there is conjoined the gathering 
of the people out of all countries and placing them in 
their own land. As, for instance, these words of the 
prophet, which show how these two things, so essential to 
each other, are joined together and depend on each 
other : " For I will take you," saith the Lord, " from 
among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, 
and will bring you into your own land. Then will I 
sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean; 
from all your nlthiness and from all your idols will I 
cleanse you. And I will put my spirit within you and 
cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my 
judgments and do them. And ye shall dwell in the land 
that I gave to your fathers, and ye shall be my people 
and I will be your God." t 

From this it would surely appear that the new covenant 
which, with all its inconceivable fullness and immeas- 
urableness, came with the gift of the Holy Ghost on the 
great day of Pentecost, will accompany the repossession 
of the land of their fathers by his chosen people, and that 
God, " having put his spirit within them and taken away 
the stony heart out of their flesh, and having given them an 

* Jeremiah xxxi., 23, 27, 28. t Ezekiel xxxvi., 24, 25, 27, 28. 



5 6 The Promised Day of Israel. 

heart of flesh," * they will evermore " walk in his statutes, 
and keep his judgments, and do them." Otherwise, like 
their forefathers, they would soon deteriorate and go back 
to their former estate, as was the case after the return 
from the captivity of Babylon. But they will now and 
ever after stand fast in their integrity, and the words of 
the prophet will be found strictly true. " I will set mine 
eyes upon them for good, and I will bring them again to 
this land; and I will build them, and not pull them down; 
and I will plant them, and not pluck them up. And 
I will give them an heart to know me, that I am the 
Lord ; and they shall be my people, and I will be their 
God : for they shall return unto me with their whole 
heart." t 

Here is a nation, a people, to be built upon an inde- 
structible basis — that of righteousness — to comprehend 
every class and condition of man. " They shall all know 
me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith 
the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will 
remember their sin no more." " Thy people also shall be 
all righteous : they shall inherit the land forever, the 
branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may 
be glorified." 

What seems more unlikely than that this should come 
to pass. Yet what is impossible with man is possible with 
God. We have a foretaste of so great a change in a 
whole people, suddenly produced and radical in its 
character, from what occurred on the day of Pentecost 
through the agency of the Holy Ghost. That power, 
indicated by u a sound from heave ji as of a rushing, mighty 
wind," is the same Almighty power to-day as then, and 
will be as effectual, convincing of unbelief, only it will be 
exerted on a much larger scale. 

Ezekie! xxxvi., 26, 27. t Jeremiah xxn., 6, 7. 



The Promised Day of Israel. 57 

Strange, startling as all this may appear, thrust it aside 
as we may, yet when we remember that it is built on so 
immovable a foundation as the resurrection of Christ from 
the dead to sit on David's throne, and that it is the 
precursor of the fulfillment of all prophecy respecting the 
holy and happy condition of the world in time to come, 
we may dismiss all doubts and fears but that God will 
accomplish what he has said, and will "hasten it in his 
time" * Not clearer or stronger is the promise of God 
respecting the restoration of his people to their own land 
than that they shall be a holy people, and present to the 
world such a spectacle as never on so large a scale was 
seen before. And inasmuch as Christ, after he rose from 
the dead, while he commissioned his apostles "to preach 
repentance and remission of sins in his name to all nations, 
beginning at Jerusalem" f so now that " the earth is to be 
filled with the glory of the Lord," his people filled with all 
the fullness of the Godhead, as the first disciples were on 
the day of Pentecost, fully armed and equipped, like Israel 
of old, on the banks of the Jordan, will shine forth in the 
beauty of holiness and irradiate the world with the glory 
of the Lord. 

What has their present distance from God, or habits 
acquired, low and sordid, by ages of abuse and perse- 
cution, or opposition to Christ, or hatred to his name, 
or any other seemingly impassable obstacle, to do 
with the question ? Faith in Christ is the main point. 
Let the vail that hides from their view the glories of the 
Redeemer be once taken away; let this omnipotent 
word from their favorite prophet once reach their heart, 
breaking through every barrier, casting down every high 
thought and vain imagination. "O house of Jacob, come ye, 
and let us walk in the light of the Lord ; " | and as the 

* Isaiah Ix. 22. t Luke xxiv. 47. \ Isaiah ii. 5. 

3* 



53 The Promised Day of Israel. 

Syrian captain came up from the waters of the Jordan with 
his flesh restored as the flesh of a little child, wholly cleansed 
from his leprosy, so will Israel come forth out of the wilder- 
ness leaning on the arm of her beloved, shining in the 
light of God, little in her own eyes as a little child, and 
desiring nothing so much as to glorify God. Free from 
all slavish fear, made free by "the spirit of the Lord: and 
where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty," the vail 
having been taken away which had so long been upon their 
heart when Moses was read, "the redeemed of the Lord," 
the children of Israel, "with open face beholding as in a 
glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same 
image from glory to glory, as by the spirit of the Lord," * 

This sufficiently accounts for the great and glorious 
change. Faith in the Redeemer of the world, faith that 
takes the vail away, that summons them to a new life. 
The law put in their inward parts, written in their hearts, 
living there as if in characters of light it was transcribed 
on fleshly tablets, a transformation is effected which is as 
wonderful as it is true, and in this manner God takes 
away " the rebuke of his people front off all the earth : for 
the Lord hath spoken it." f 

No longer an exile, no longer a byword and reproach, 
no longer shunned and despised, but "a name of joy, a 
praise and an honor before all the nations of the earth," \ 
these words will apply in their fullest force to the saved of 
the remnant of Israel. " Behold, the Lord hath proclaimed 
unto the end of the world, Say ye to the daughter of Zion, 
Behold, thy salvation cometh; behold, his reward is with 
him, and his work before him. And they shall call them 
The holy people, The redeemed of the Lord : and thou 
shalt be called Sought out, A city not forsaken." § 

* II. Corinthians iii., 15, 16, 17, 18. t Isaiah xxv. 8. * Jeremiah xxxiii. 9. 
§ Isaiah lxii., 11, 12. 



III. 



THE MYSTERY OF INIQUITY, 



CHAPTER I. 



Unbelief. 



ONE of the surest marks or indications of the near 
approach and coming of Christ is the decadence of 
faith, or a general disregard or postponement of that 
event. But this is only one of the features of a decay 
of faith. Faith itself, faith in God and in the power 
of the cross, must rest, pure and simple, on the whole 
system of revealed truth. You cannot take away a 
single stone from the edifice without weakening the 
whole building. And in proportion as faith grows weak 
and love declines, unbelief sets in, and ere long we 
find ourselves rapidly verging toward the partial or total 
rejection of that faith "which was once delivered to the 
saints." There appears to be no stopping place when once 
we are fairly borne along by the dark and rapid current of 
unbelief. There is but one ground of safety, one sure 
anchorage, and that is in adhering to the very letter of God's 
written word. If you examine the history of faith, its rise 



62 The Mystery of Iniquity. 

and progress, as developed in the lives of those who have 
been the most signal and illustrious examples of its saving 
power, you will find in every instance an exact, though 
not always at first a ready and cheerful compliance with 
the divine command. If at the first the spirit resists, yet 
in the end faith is invariably and completely victorious. 
If nature has its claims and lifts up her voice, yet faith in 
God triumphs over what seems to be an unreasonable and 
perhaps an unnatural requisition, and we do what God 
bids us do, trusting in his power, from the knowledge of 
him by long and intimate acquaintance, tried in a variety 
of ways, and we leave results with him. Of course, a 
faith grounded on knowledge and long and deep experi- 
ence, conjoined to a sober mind, is what is always 
implied and supposable in such cases; and so we always 
find it, in every instance, in the word of God. 

It is hardly necessary to multiply examples. The com- 
mand of God to Abraham to leave his kindred and all that 
was most dear to him, without particularizing where he was 
going, was no ordinary trial of his faith; and ever after 
and in every way, step by step, God tested his faith, till it 
rose to a point of sublimity, and in the end laid the 
foundation, firm and sure, of the redemption of the earth 
from the curse, and the ultimate "restitution of all things." 

Unbelief is the reverse of all this, and has led to all the 
evil with which our world is afflicted. This is the state- 
ment in God's word, and it has always been found among 
God's ancient and chosen people, in an inverse propor- 
tion, that as the one flourished or declined, so was it with 
the nation at large : either the fear of God was uppermost 
and the nation prospered, or the opposite was the case. 
All the evil that has befallen them in the course of their 
varied existence is to be traced to their disobedience, and 



The Mystery of Iniquity. , 6$ 

their disobedience is the result of their unbelief. So 
through all their history, down to the present day. 

At present what is lacking but the faith of apostles and 
prophets to revive the work of God, to give to the gospel 
of the Son of God a new impulse, and to make it to-day 
as powerful, if not more so, than at the first ? But this is 
not so. Faith has degenerated. The faith that divided 
the Red Sea, that stopped the sun in his course, that shut 
up and opened heaven, that raised the dead — we have it 
not. Has God changed ? Is faith less operative than it 
was ? Has not Jesus Christ said : " If ye have faith as a 
grain of mustard seed" [that is the faith of an Elijah, 
who " was a man subject to like passions as we are," *] 
"ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to 
yonder place, and it shall remove ; and nothing shall be 
impossible unto you." f 

The want of faith, in a very marked manner, not to 
speak of its absence in other respects, is evidenced by the 
little solemnity that is felt, or the expectancy that is 
shown, toward the greatest of all events, the second 
coming of our Lord. And of this our Lord is speaking 
while directly referring to it and notifying us of it. As it 
was in the days of Noah and as it was in the days of Lot, 
so shall it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed. 
"Nevertheless, when the Son of Man cometh shall he find 
faith on the earth ?"\ 

This is a day and hour requiring the most serious 
consideration, and the most earnest and careful prepara- 
tion, especially in view of its uncertainty, and the sudden- 
ness with which it will come on all the earth. But our 
Lord darkens the picture when, in his discourse, he says it 
will be a day of wrath, as it was in the time of Noah, 
"and the flood came, and destroyed them all"; or as it 

* James v. 17. t Matthew xvii. 20. % Luke xviii. 8. 



64 The Mystery of Iniquity. 

was in the time of Lot, when "it rained fire and brimstone 
from heaven, and destroyed them all." * Our Lord thus 
speaks of it: "And shall not God avenge his own elect, 
which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long 
with them? I tell you that he will avenge them 
speedily." f 

But what, in addition to all else beside, will help to 
characterize this day of days will be the increased power 
and activity of wickedness, and the progress and malignity 
of unbelief. Then will appear the forces of evil, arrayed 
against God as never before. This will be seen more 
clearly as we proceed. Unbelief, more deadly even than at 
any time in the past, will unmask its batteries and assail 
the very throne of God, and the whole world nearly, for a 
time, will be carried away by the delusion and by the 
deceitfulness of sin. And now, amid " a falling away " so 
general, perhaps, as almost to sweep away every vestige 
of faith, will " that man of sin be revealed, the son of 
perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all 
that is called God, or that is worshiped; so that he as 
God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he 
is God." % 

Underlying unbelief and opposition of the deadliest 
nature against God, like that represented in the above 
passage, implies, and according to God's word establishes, 
the existence of a malignant spirit — not by any means 
barely a principle of evil — designated in sacred writ as 
" that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which 
deceiveth the whole world ; " § and whose existence, 
subtlety and power, and evil flowing therefrom, constitute 
what the Holy Bible calls " The Mystery of Iniquity." 

* Luke xvii., 27, 29. f Luke xviii. 8. % II. Thessalonians ii., 3, 4. 
§ Revelation xii. 9. 



CHAPTER II. 



The Prince of this World. 



IS not the analogy striking, whatever view we please to 
take of it, that we meet with the being called " the 
old serpent " as the prime mover or factor in that act of 
transgression which entailed the curse upon our world; 
and then again we come in direct contact with the same 
evil agent shadowing the path of Him who came into our 
world with the express purpose of removing the curse 
from our earth and restoring things to the state they were 
in before the fall ? The two are placed in direct antagonism 
to each other, as if face to face. 

As soon as the Deliverer of our race from the curse of 
sin and death makes his public appearance among his 
ancient, chosen people, prepared by "the unction of the 
Holy One," the baptism of the Holy Ghost, to make his 
first essay in behalf of his people, then he is "led up of the 
Spirit into the wilderness, to be tempted of the devil." * 

* Matthew iv. i. 
65 



66 The Mystery of Iniquity. 

In fact, all turns upon this. It is the presage either of 
final victory or defeat, according as the issue may be. 
When the Devil retired, foiled, chafed, beaten, however 
long the complete victory might be delayed, yet in the 
end it is sure to come. It is but a question of time and 
expediency, as to what God deems best to do or not. 

The general features of what occurs in the wilderness 
are similar to those that occur in the garden. The 
tempter is the same; "the craft and subtlety of the devil" 
are the same, the means are the same — the faculty of 
acute reasoning, and in both cases — that of the woman in 
the garden or Jesus in the wilderness — the interchange of 
speech is what takes place between intelligent beings. It 
is all real, actual ; not a fancy sketch, not a fable, not an 
allegory. But that which makes both what transpired 
in the wilderness and in the garden real in the most 
absolute sense — beyond, indeed, the possibility of a doubt 
in any candid mind — is the immense consequences that 
followed both for evil and for good; first for evil, and 
then, as time and the events will show, for the greatest 
good, for all time to come. 

In the course of the realities which form part of the 
interlocutory in the wilderness, is the offer of the Devil to 
Christ, to give him all the kingdoms of the world, and the 
glory of them, on the ground that they are delivered to 
him, and to whomsoever he will he gives them, if he will 
fall down and worship him.* Assuming the claim of the 
Devil that all the kingdoms of the world are delivered unto 
him, and are under his governance, and ruled according 
to his policy, and obey his behests — our Saviour virtually 
admits his claim by the manner in which he addresses 
him and the title which he gives him, not once only, but 

* Matthew iv., 8, 9; Luke iv. 6. 



The Mystery of Iniquity. 67 

again and again. As, for instance, as follows : " Now is 
the judgment of this world : now shall the prince of this 
world be cast out." * " Hereafter I will not talk much 
with you : for the prince of this world cometh, and hath 
nothing in me." t " When the Comforter is come unto 
you, he will convince the world of judgment, because the 
prince of this world is judged." % 

In another passage, the seventy having returned from 
their mission, "and saying, Lord, even the devils are 
subject unto us through thy name, Jesus said unto them, I 
beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven," § which is not 
by any means to be understood as a figure of rhetoric, but 
describes an actual occurrence, and as what will be seen 
and known "when the seventh angel shall sound, and the 
mystery of God shall be about to be finished, as he hath 
declared to his servants, the prophets." || 

In all this we see a living person, and as such distinctly 
recognized by our Lord himself. We cannot make of him 
a myth — an impalpable personage. He is a living, 
intelligent being, fallen from his high estate, more or less 
shrouded in mystery, possessing extraordinary powers — 
almost limitless and fathomless, and all devoted — strange 
and unnatural as it may appear, and almost an impeach- 
ment of the power, truth and goodness of God — to the 
cause of evil, and for long successful. Such is the living, 
active adversary both of God and man, and who will have 
greater power for evil, according to the scriptures, in the 
last days than at any time previous. 

He is represented not only as "the prince of this 
world," but as "the prince of the power of the air, the 
spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience." jj 

* John xii. 31. t John xiv. 30. % John xvi. 11. § Luke x. 17. 

|| Revelation xii. 9; x. 7. ^[Ephesians ii. 2. 



68 The Mystery of Iniquity. 

Combined with the prince of the power of the air, and 
under his leadership, it would seem that there are throne* 
and dominions, ranged as if on earth, under the names ot 
"principalities and powers," and that beyond our limitc .1 
vision there are gathered "the rulers of the darkness of 
this world, wicked spirits in high places." * This dark 
domain we dare not enter, but it corroborates what is 
elsewhere said of the fall of Satan from heaven, as if a 
time would come when the range of wicked spirits in high 
places would be abridged, and this earth become the 
scene of the last great conflict between faith and unbelief 
— between God and Satan. We have prospectively some 
insight into this from part of what will take place when 
" the seventh trumpet shall begin to sound." f Dark and 
mysterious as it is, yet we are bound to take it as it reads, 
and wait for those developments which will arise in the 
future to explain and ratify God's holy, true and faithful 
words as they have in the past. All things are tending to 
a great end, to a glorious consummation, and whatever 
relates to this great result, whether it retards or hastens it, 
we will know in due time, and shall then see light in the 
light of God, and of his accomplished purposes. We read 
that " there was war in heaven : Michael and his angels 
fought against the dragon and his angels," and the issue 
was that "the great dragon, that old serpent, called the 
Devil, and Satan, was cast out into the earth, and his 
angels were cast out with him." J- Or, to repeat the words 
of our Lord when the seventy told him that " even the 
devils were subject unto them," — " I beheld," he said unto 
them, " Satan as lightning fall from heaven " ; so soon did 
Michael and his angels prevail against the dragon and 
his angels, and so swiftly and suddenly were they cast out. 

* Ephesians vi. 12. t Revelation x. 7. % Revelation xii., 7, 9. 



The Mystery of Iniquity. 69 

What follows is a very striking commentary upon the 
dread reality of this conflict, and shows what a bearing it 
has upon the ultimate triumph of Christ and "the restitu- 
tion of all things." "And I heard a loud voice saying in 
heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the 
kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ ; for the 
accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them 
before our God day and night." * 

Further, it is added, as if in additional confirmation of 
the reality of the above, that the great dragon and his 
angels having been driven from their vantage ground and 
cast down to the earth, the voice in heaven is heard 
saying : " Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell 
in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the 
sea ! for the devil is come down unto you, having great 
wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time."f 

Before, then, we discard these revelations, or treat them 
as of little or no account, or by any forced interpretation 
other than the literal mislead others, let us wait at least 
until the grand consummation is reached, and this "fall 
of Satan as lightning from heaven" is shown to be the first 
step toward the complete overthrow of Satan and rescue 
of our sin-burdened earth from his destructive power. 
But we must first take into consideration that while the 
heavens and those that dwell in them have reason to 
rejoice because the accuser of our brethren is cast down, 
"woe, woe is pronounced upon the inhabiters of the earth 
and the sea, for the devil is come down unto you, having 
great wrath." This is one of a series of dark events under 
the third woe,! the heaviest and the last, and belongs to 
that particular period when the seventh trumpet sounds, 
and amid " lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and 

* Revelation xii. 10. f Revelation xii. 12. \ Revelation viii. 13. 



70 The Mystery of Iniquity. 

an earthquake, and great hail," " the mystery of God " 
draws step by step to a close ; Satan is discomfited, and 
the curtain drops upon the dark and stormy scene, while 
is heard a loud voice saying in heaven, "Now is come 
salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the 
power of his Christ," * 

As the period of final and complete redemption draws 
near, there is an accumulation of woes to " the inhabiters 
of the earth," arising from " the devil having come down 
to us, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he 
hath but a short time." From this time " the dragon was 
wroth with the woman," f and went to make war " with 
the remnant of her seed which keep the commandments 
of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ." f 

* Revelation xii. 10. t Revelation xii. i. % Revelation xii. 17. 



CHAPTER III. 



The Reign of Blasphemy. 



AMONG the tribulations of the last days, indicated 
by " the sun being darkened, the moon not giving 
her light, the stars falling from heaven and the powers of 
the heavens shaken," * most portentous, there " rises up 
out of the sea a beast having seven heads and ten horns, 
and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his head the 
name of blasphemy." \ Without attempting any explana- 
tion in detail of the symbolized seven heads and ten horns 
of the beast that rises up out of the sea, we remark that 
the name of blasphemy upon his head portends war upon 
the remnant of the seed of "the woman" "which keep the 
commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus 
Christ." What makes this still more significant and 
ominous is that the great dragon, as if for the time being 
abdicating his power, or combining with the beast — 
adding strength to strength, — "gives him his power, his 

* Matthew xxiv. 29. t Revelation xiii. 1. 

71 



72 The Mystery of Iniquity. 

seat, and great authority."* And as "the dragon" is a 
synonym for "that old serpent, called the Devil, and 
Satan," who "beguiled Eve through his subtlety," f and so 
brought sin and death into the world, with all other evils 
in their train, this formidable alliance between the dragon 
and the beast argues nothing but ill to the cause of Christ 
and to "the faith of Jesus." It is true, it seems from 
present appearances and from the past history of Christi- 
anity, dark as some of its historic stages have been, as 
improbable and as impossible as that the sun should go 
back twelve degrees on the dial, as that the worst kind of 
irreligion should yet overrun the earth, and that but a 
comparatively small remnant of the true followers of Jesus 
Christ should be left to battle against the unbelief of the 
world, caused by the power and subtlety of "that old 
serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the 
whole world r For six thousand years Satan has main- 
tained his ascendancy, has blinded and led the whole 
world in his train, has claimed and possessed all the king- 
doms of the world and the glory of them, has filled the 
whole earth with war and discord, and spread darkness 
over it; now that all this power and great authority is 
seriously threatened, what wonder is it that he should rally 
all his strength for a last combined effort against "the 
kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ"? Has 
not this been his policy and aim ever since he and his 
angels "kept not their first estate, but left their own 
habitation " ? % It might have been different ; but with the 
facts before us, with the knowledge we have of the past 
and present condition of the world, the ungodliness that 
prevails and the increasing prevalence of unbelief, "through 
Satan's subtlety," we might come to a more favorable 

* Revelation xiii. 2. t II. Corinthians xi. 3. % Jude 6. 



The Mystery of Iniquity. 73 

conclusion, and not look upon so great a cloud of dark- 
ness and irreligion and blasphemy "against God and his 
tabernacle,"* "as the smoke of a great furnace arising out 
of the bottomless pit," t as at all likely, in the near and 
coming future, to darken and overspread the sun and the 
air,f and the whole earth. But we must look at things 
as they are, face to face, according to the teaching of 
God's most holy word. Thus St. Paul, as we have seen, 
"taught of God," while removing the strong, general 
impression which existed at that time of Christ's speedy 
coming, says to those to whom the epistle was addressed : 
" Be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by 
spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the 
day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any 
means : for that day shall not come, except there come a 
falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son 
of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all 
that is called God, or that is worshiped; so that he as 
God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he 
is God." § 

As yet nothing that is named has reached this height of 
blasphemy, this daring assailment of the throne of God. 
This is still held in reserve. In proof whereof, this 
demonstration of wickedness and unbelief, and denial of 
God as God, will only be fully manifested in "the day of 
Christ," at "the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our 
gathering together unto him." || This is the just inference 
from the language of the text. The spirit of delusion, of 
Antichrist, has long been at work ; it existed in the days 
of the apostles, it is rampant now, but it will not attain to 
full bloom and flower till the Devil, and Satan, with his 

* Revelation xiii. 6. t Revelation ix. 2. % Revelation ix. 2. 
§ II. Thessalonians ii., 2, 3, 4. || II. Thessalonians ii. 1. 

4 



74 The Mystery of ftiiqtcity. 

angels, are cast out into the earth, and "the dragon, wroth 
with the woman," goes forth to make war with the 
remnant of her seed and those which, in the dark and 
cloudy day, amid thunderings, voices, lightnings and an 
earthquake, and great hail, keep the commandments of 
God, and have the testimo?iy of Jesus Christ. 

The culmination of the opposition of Satan, in alliance 
with the beast, whatever formidable power this may 
symbolize, has now arrived, and its mightiness is directed 
against "the kingdom of our God and the power of his 
Christ." It is indeed hard to conceive of the existence of 
such a spirit of malevolence in a rational, created being, 
one, too, endued with such extraordinary powers, either 
for good or evil, by the Creator ; but so it is ; and for the 
present it must be resolved into what is elsewhere called, 
as we have seen, in holy writ, " The Mystery of God." * 
And here we may inquire, in the darkness of our 
ignorance, can it be that "the falling away" in the last 
days is to be so general, and the lapse from God so great, 
the soul so benighted, a departure so much worse than 
paganism in its lowest state, that to blaspheme God, "to 
blaspheme his name and his tabernacle and them that 
dwell in heaven," t is to mark this new epoch of unbelief 
with darker features than ever before in the history of our 
world? It would seem so, for we read: "All the world 
wondered after the beast. And they worshiped the 
dragon which gave power unto the beast, and they 
worshiped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast ? 
Who is able to make war with him ? " £ 

Darker than darkness is this war waged against God 
and against his name, and for the time that the 
power of the beast lasts ("to continue forty and two 

* Revelation x. 7. t Revelation xiii. 6. J Revelation xiii., 3, 4. 



The Mystery of Iniquity. 75 

months," * whatever the length of time this may imply) it 
is successful. "The saints are overcome, and power is 
given unto the beast over all kindreds and tongues and 
nations. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship 
him, whose names are not written in the book of life of 
the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." t 

To aid a delusion so general, as in the past in Egypt, 
when miracles were wrought through an evil agency, so 
now "signs and lying wonders are wrought after the 
working of Satan, and those that dwell in the earth are 
deceived by means of those miracles which were done," 
and among others "he maketh fire come down from 
heaven in the sight of men." | 

Gloomy as this picture of a general apostasy is which 
we draw from the sacred writings, and little in harmony 
with present appearances and the state of Christianity at 
this time, with the efforts that are making and the measures 
that are in progress in nearly every part of the world to 
convert the heathen, still it will hardly do to set this 
"falling away," of which St. Paul also speaks in no 
measured terms, wholly aside, for the reason that, from 
the same inspired source, we also learn of the ultimate 
triumph of Christ over all his foes, and his universal reign 
on this earth. If we conclude to yield the one, we put 
ourselves in a position almost necessarily to relinquish the 
other. We would not err much if we were to ask 
whether or no in civilized countries, where the Christian 
religion has been long established, the fruits of the Holy 
Spirit are as evident and as universally diffused and 
exhibited as they ought to be, and whether there is not 
yet room for the power of infidelity to infuse itself into 

* Revelation xiii. 5. f Revelation xiii., 7, 8. 

i II. Thessalonians ii. 9; Revelation xiii., 13, 14. 



7 6 The Mystery of Iniquity. 

the body politic, and in its deadliest form, as in France 
during the revolution, to sap the foundations of divine 
truth, to destroy the safeguards of virtue, to let in a flood 
of licentiousness, and to make a complete shipwreck of 
faith and a good conscience. This has certainly been 
done in professedly religious nations in the past ; and for 
aught we know may be done again. The same causes 
are apt to produce the same results, and this the more so, 
as the Bible expressly teaches, as the end of the world 
approaches, that tribulations will deepen and increase; 
" and there shall be a time of trouble such as never was 
since there was a nation even to that same time." * This 
is more fully dilated upon in the book of the Revelation of 
Jesus Christ to his servant John, and while on the one 
hand " the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the 
inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity," t and " In that 
day, with his sore and great and strong sword to punish 
leviathan, the piercing serpent, even leviathan, that 
crooked serpent, and to slay the dragon in the sea," \ so, 
on the other hand, the rising of the beast out of the 
sea, the spread of his power "over all kindreds and 
tongues and nations," § and that power " exalting itself 
above all that is called God, and as God sitting in the 
temple of God, showing himself that he is God," "making 
war with the saints, and overcoming them," "his tail 
drawing the third part of the stars of heaven, and casting 
them to the earth," || will be one of the most marked 
features of that time of trouble among the nations, which 
has never had a parallel and will never recur again. And 
inasmuch as when Christ lay in the tomb, buried in the 
earth, all hope of the resuscitation of his cause and 

* Daniel xii. i. t Isaiah xxvi. 21. t Isaiah xxvii. 1. § Revelation xiii. 7. 

|| Revelation xii. 4. 



The Mystery of Iniquity. 77 

kingdom seemed gone forever, so now, with "the mark 
of the beast in the right hand, and in the foreheads 
of all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and 
bond,"* and "a mouth speaking great things and blas- 
phemies," f it would look as if sin and Satan were 
supreme, and the promise of " the times of restitution of 
all things" void and empty. But as on the third day 
Christ rose from the dead, and gave assurance of his 
ultimate victory over sin and death, the devil and all his 
works, so the present depression caused by " the prince of 
the power of the air and the rulers of the darkness of this 
world " % will be but temporary — not of any long 
continuance : ere long " the kingdom of our God and the 
power of his Christ," rising disburdened of its load, will 
appear in its strength, the power of Satan will be crushed, 
and "the kingdoms of this world shall become the king- 
doms of our Lord, and of his Christ, and he shall reign 
for ever and ever." § 

* Revelation xiii. 16. t Revelation xiii. 5. % Ephesians ii. 2; vi. 12. 
§ Revelation xi. 15. 



CHAPTER IV. 



The Judgment of the Woman. 









ANOTHER name for "the woman that sitteth 
upon many waters " * is " great Babylon," also 
" Mystery." f They stand as symbols for one and the 
same thing. "And the woman which thou sawest is that 
great city which reigneth over the kings of the earth." J 
How large her rule, how wide her sway — "over the kings 
of the earth," limited only by the extent of the habitable 
earth — is shown by the signification given to the figurative 
expression "many waters," by which is understood 
"peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues." § 
Her realm is the wide globe ; all nations pay deference to 
her commands. Her dominion is absolute. We need, 
therefore, hardly observe that by the terms " Mystery," 
" Babylon the Great," " the woman that sitteth upon 
many waters," we mean the terraqueous earth. 

* Revelation xvii. i. t Revelation xvii. 5. % Revelation xvii. 18. 
§ Revelation xvii. 15. 

7 3 



The Mystery of Iniquity. 79 

Babylon the Great, therefore, or the woman that sitteth 
upon many waters, are symbols or terms by which we 
understand the world, or "the kingdoms of this world," 
with " the cities of the nations," * under the governance 
of "the prince of this world," as designated by Christ 
Jesus the Lord. When, therefore, we read that " God 
hath judged the woman, which did corrupt the earth with 
her fornication," f or hear a voice from heaven, saying, 
" Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city ! for 
in one hour is thy judgment come," \ we do but repeat 
the words of Christ, and reiterate his prediction when he 
used these most expressive and emphatic words : " When 
the Comforter is come, he will co?ivince the world of judg- 
ment, because the prince of this world is judged" § 

The prince of this world, Babylon the great, the woman 
that sitteth upon many waters, are, therefore, correlative 
terms, having a reciprocal relation to each other, so that 
the existence of the one necessarily implies the existence 
of the other. They are so joined together as to constitute 
one great whole, so that if you touch one you touch all, 
and one fate is common to all. When our Saviour says, 
"the prince of this world is judged," he with the same 
breath pronounces the doom of the great city Babylon 
and the judgment of the woman. Sad and mournful are 
the words that announce the coming fall of Babylon, 
notwithstanding all the evil she had done, and though 
"she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of 
her fornication." || So our Saviour wept over Jerusalem 
as he foresaw her coming doom, though she had stoned to 
death all the prophets that had been sent to her, adding 
crime to crime, and was about to close the dark catalogue 

* Revelation xvi. 19. t Revelation xix. 2. % Revelation xviii. 16. 
§ John xvi., 7, 11. || Revelation xiv. 8. 



80 The Mystery of Iniquity. 

by the death of Christ himself on the cross. Pity mingles 
ever with God's just judgments, as we see in the case of 
Jerusalem, and this feeling is not absent even when it is 
said of "that great city," "her plagues come in one day, 
death and mourning and famine ; and she shall be utterly 
burned with fire; for strong is the Lord God who judgeth 
her." * 

The description we have of "that great city Babylon, 
that mighty city ! " of its gorgeousness and splendor, of 
her "merchants who were the great men of the earth," of 
all those " who were made rich that had ships in the sea," 
of the costliness of her merchandise, of the profusion of 
her wealth, her "great riches," how she "glorified herself 
and lived deliciously," and how all things "which were 
dainty and goodly" abounded in her, and there was ever 
heard " the voice of harpers and musicians, and of pipers 
and trumpeters," — all this spectacle of wealth, splendor 
and riotous living is common to all the great cities of the 
earth, whether past or present, and in describing one you 
describe all, and "that great city Babylon, that mighty 
city," represents and embodies "the cities of the nations," 
both as they rise and as they fall, without respect to one 
more than another. And the wail that is heard far and 
wide, upon sea and upon land, " weeping and wailing that 
in one hour she is made desolate," is but the cry of all 
kindreds of the earth, the time having most surely arrived 
— that portentous hour — when "the nation and king- 
dom that will not serve God shall perish; yea, those 
nations shall be utterly wasted." f 

This crisis in human affairs — this culmination of the 
judgments of the Almighty — occurs when the seventh 
angel, with the vial containing the last of the seven 

Revelation xviii. 8. t Isaiah lx. 12. 



The Mystery of Iniquity. 81 

plagues — "the golden vial full of the wrath of God" — 
pours its contents into the air : " and there came a great 
voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, 
It is done. And there were voices, and thunders, and 
lightnings ; and there was a great earthquake, such as was 
not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earth- 
quake, and so great. And the great city was divided into 
three parts, arid the cities of the 7iatio?is fell, and great 
Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto 
her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. 
And every island fled away, and the mountains were not 
found." * 

Such and so great has been the judgment of all the 
great cities of former ages, even of Babylon proper, the 
representative city, the type of the whole world. The 
cause of the overthrow and desolation of cities is ever the 
same — pride and self-exaltation and oppression. Thus it 
was with Babylon of old. She said in her heart : " I will 
ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars 
of God; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I 
will be like the Most High. Yet thou shalt be brought 
down to hell, to the sides of the pit. - " f This is the fate 
of nations and of cities, and of all who, in the pride of 
their heart and their naughtiness, forget God, cast his 
words behind them, and proudly claim an equality with 
him, and so rush headlong into all manner of iniquity. 
The source of this is unbelief;- — this is the Pandora box 
whence has come forth, hydra-headed, all the evils with 
which our world has been so grievously afflicted. 

When we survey the past, when we cast our eyes over 
the desolations of ages, the drowning of the old world, the 
destruction of such cities as Sodom and Gomorrah by 

* Revelation xvi., 17-20. t Isaiah xiv., 13, 14, 15. 

A* 



82 The Mystery of Iniquity. 

fire; when we contemplatively look around for the site of 
ancient Babylon, "the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of 
the Chaldees' excellency," # we see, for the same reason 
and for a similar cause, the same invisible hand writing on 
the wall these ominous words, so dark, so threatening: 
"And I will punish the world for their evil, and the 
wicked for their iniquity ; and I will cause the arrogancy 
of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of 
'the terrible." t 

"The judgment of the woman," therefore, the fall of sym- 
bolical Babylon, is the punishment of all the kingdoms of 
this world, and the departure of the glory of them and that 
of " the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication 
and lived deliciously," % as if they indeed were freed from 
ordinary obligations which all men alike owe to God and 
man, on account of the superiority of their rank and their 
independent position, and the false glamour that surrounds 
a throne. When once judgment has been pronounced, 
"and great Babylon has come in remembrance before 
God to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness 
of his wrath," there is " heard a great voice of much people 
in heaven, saying, Alleluia, salvation, and glory, and 
honor, and power, unto the Lord our God ; for true and 
righteous are his judgments; for he hath judged the 
woman, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, 
and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand. 
And again they said, Alleluia. And her smoke rose up 
for ever and ever." § 

Isaiah xiii. 19. t Isaiah xiii. 11. J Revelation xviii. 9. § Revelation xix., 1, 2, 3. 



IV. 



THE RENEWED EARTH. 



CHAPTER I. 



The Earth. 



THERE is an exceedingly striking and impressive 
passage in the fifth chapter of the Revelation of 
Jesus Christ by his servant John, which appears to look 
forward to the time when, according to the prayer of our 
blessed Lord, his " kingdom will come and his will be 
done in earth as it is in heaven." And what adds to 
the interest and impressiveness of the passage is that it is 
suggested and brought out into clear relief by the fact that 
" the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath 
prevailed to open the book, which John saw in the right 
hand of him that sat on the throne, written within and 
without, and sealed with seven seals; because no man 
was found worthy to open and to read the book, neither 
to look thereon." # This was the moment of beatitude, 
when Christ Jesus the Lord — to drop the figure — "took 
the book out of the right hand of him that sat upon the 

* Revelation v., 1-5. 
85 



86 The Renewed Ea?'th. 

throne." * This was the first link in the golden chain 
which connects the book, so sacred that, like the face of 
God, no man can look thereon and live, through all its 
various and intricate windings and turnings, with the 
coming kingdom and glory of Christ. When Christ Jesus 
the Lord had taken the book, joy divine was felt and 
spread around ; and " the four beasts, and four and twenty 
elders, having harps in their hands, fell down before the 
Lamb, and they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy 
to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou 
wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out 
of every kindred and tongue and people and nation, and 
hast made us unto our God kings and priests : and we 
shall reign on the earth." t 

But the song does not stop here. " Ten thousand 
times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands," f join in 
this emphatically u new song" the burden of v/hich is, 
"atid we shall reign on the earth" while at the same time, 
with a loud voice, they say, " Worthy is the Lamb that 
was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and 
strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing." § The 
whole of this astonishing spectacle, and this multitude of 
voices singing praises, anticipating the reign of Christ 
on the earth, attended by his saints, is verified, as the 
scene closes, by fhe four beasts, who said, Amen. "And 
the four and twenty elders fell down and worshiped Him 
that liveth forever and ever." || 

Thus opens, almost as a transparency, this glorious 
book, which looks to this earth as the scene where coming 
events connected with the kingdom and glory and power 
of Christ "must shortly come to pass." And where else 
should we look for them to transpire but on this conse- 

* Revelation v. 7. t Revelation v., 8, 9, 10. J Revelation v. 11. 
§ Revelation v. 12. || Revelation v. 14. 



The Re7iewed Earth. 87 

crated earth ? Of the " ten thousand times ten thousand 
and thousands of thousands," who have been redeemed to 
God by the blood of the Lamb, out of every kindred and 
tongue and people and nation, and to whom as to the 
prophets has been made known " the mystery of God," 
and who have suffered with Christ here below, what more 
natural, or following in the order of things, than that they 
should sing the new song and take up the burthen of it : 
" We shall reign with him on the earth " ? When, we may 
venture almost to ask, has this earth been unvisited by 
God ? Whose voice was that heard in the cool of the day, 
when the evening wind descended to the earth, whispering 
in the trees and announcing the return of the star Hesperus 
to gild and gladden the sky? Who was that stranger 
companying with two companions, who, in the very heat 
of the day, rested under the shade of Abraham's tent in the 
plain of Mamre ? Who was that mysterious personage to 
whom Abraham paid tithes ? and who was greater than 
the kings of the earth ? whose priesthood is an everlasting 
priesthood ? Who was that in the wilderness journeying 
with them for the space of forty years, under the semblance 
of a cloud, all-sheltering in the day-time, and a pillar of 
fire shining in the night-time — moving as a living 
intelligence, and serving as a leader and guide to the 
hosts of Israel ? Was not God in the cloud and in the 
pillar of fire as well as in the midst of the burning bush, 
speaking to his servant Moses out of the midst of the fire ? 
Who was it that went before Joshua, captain of the hosts 
of Israel, successor to Moses, Jeshurun's king, champion 
and legislator, meekest and greatest of all living men? 
And that cloud of glory which for five hundred years 
overshadowed the mercy seat, and from whence came 
forth the voice of the living God, heard both by Israel's 



88 The Renewed Earth. 

king and Israel's high priest ? But what, we may say, 
was all this, wonderful and great as it was, to that greatest 
of all, the incarnation of the Godhead ? Here thought is 
lost ! and, like Moses at Sinai's base, we stand on hallowed 
ground, lost "in wonder, love and praise." Of all things 
this surpasses all things. Those sacred feet having touched 
our earth — having trodden the soil, having marked the 
path with blood and left the imprint thereof behind, as 
weary and fainting he carried his cross, have consecrated 
our earth forever, and made the dust under our feet more 
precious than the gold of Ophir. And is not this earth, 
defiled as it has been by sin, dear to God, dear to that 
loving heart — most loving of all hearts ? And is not 
heaven coming down to the earth ? Will not the taber- 
nacle of God be with men ? Will he not dwell with them 
and make the place of the soles of his feet glorious ? O 
thou incarnate God ! what hast thou not promised of good 
to our earth ? and wilt thou not fulfill thy promise ? What 
are golden streets, or tesselated pavements, or gates of 
pearl, or foundations of precious stones, to thy presence ? 
Just nothing at all. The soul rises superior to all these 
nonentities, and rests itself forever wholly with and in God. 
This green earth, the cloudless sky, the roseate hue of 
morning, the soft atmosphere cleared of all impurity, the 
bubbling fountain, with thee, my God, and the heart's 
adoration, with sweet companionship, — the companion- 
ship of those with whom we are allied forever, — will 
constitute a new paradise more than restored, with the 
assurance that no blight will fall on it evermore. 

It is a somewhat curious circumstance, in the face of all 
that is written concerning the return of the Saviour to our 
earth to restore all things, and the express declaration, 
solemn oath and promise of Almighty God to create new 



The Renewed Earth. 89 

heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness, 
that the heaven above is all and in all, while the earth is 
looked upon as of little or no account, it not with actual 
disfavor. What is it that constitutes heaven ? Is it not 
the actual presence of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ ? 
And are we not assured in the strongest and most positive 
manner that, when " the times of restitution of all things " 
shall have fully arrived, he will return to our earth to 
complete what he left uncompleted ? Is it not said that 
from the beginning of the world this has been the great 
theme, the ever-recurring theme of prophecy on the part 
of all the holy prophets from time to time, as they succes- 
sively appeared and reiterated God's promise and gracious 
declaration to the rebellious children of Israel, through his 
servant Moses : " But as truly as I live, all the earth shall 
be filled with the glory of the Lord." * Are we to shut our 
eyes to all this? Has it no significance? Are we to weary 
our eyes in looking up toward heaven while heaven is 
waiting to come down to us ? Have we not already seen 
that an innumerable multitude " of every kindred and 
tongue and people and nation," who have been redeemed 
to God by the blood of the Lamb, have in advance of the 
time — that favored and blissful period — sang that new 
song of praise and thanksgiving because the Lamb that 
was slain has prevailed to open the book, and to loose the 
seven seals thereof (containing the history of the final 
destiny and closing scenes of this earth's changeful drama), 
"and hast made us unto our God kings and priests, 
and we shall reign on the earth " ? Does this amount 
to little or nothing ? What gladdens myriads of the 
redeemed, shall it not also gladden us ? What God so 
honored, shall we despise, neglect or overlook ? What is 
there so repulsive on this fair earth that wc should 

* Numbers xiv. ;t. 



90 The Renewed Earth. 

disregard or look down upon it as a low and mean abode, 
unworthy as the place of our everlasting home ? Those 
pictures of heaven in the Revelations, do they not rather 
partake of the spirit and style of eastern imagery ? and 
should they draw us from the contemplation of God 
himself? The sight and study of nature, of God's works, 
the knowledge of God, so far as possible of attainment in 
the ages to come, an activity and growth in knowledge 
which can never be measured, — these, and other appliances 
in harmony with an enlarged and endless sphere, will 
constitute on this renewed earth a home, "a place 
prepared for us by God," which shall fully gratify our 
every sense, employ our highest faculties and, ever occu- 
pied, fill our whole being with God himself — his marvelous 
works and measureless love. This will be the happy 
consummation of an existence like that of God himself. 



CHAPTER II. 



The Earth Redeemed a?id Prepared for the Glory to Come. 



THE great truth, so fully and clearly laid down in 
God's most holy and blessed word, the volume of 
divine inspiration, the Book of Books, that "the kingdoms 
of this world are to become the kingdoms of our Lord 
and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever," # 
sustains the view we have taken in the preceding chapter 
of the glory and blessedness that is to come to this our 
earth when, in the prophetic language of the second 
psalm, we read : " Yet have I set my king upon my holy 
hill of Zion. I will declare the decree : the Lord hath 
said unto me, Thou art my son ; this day have I begotten 
thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for 
thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for 
thy possession." t 

And when one recollects at what a price this was 
purchased — this inheritance, this possession, as is set forth 

* Revelation xi. 15. t Psalm ii., 6, 7, 8. 



92 The Renewed Earth. 

in one of those psalms of David, which depict prophet- 
ically, in most unmistakable language, the death upon the 
cross, the agony of that dreadful hour when on Christ 
Jesus was laid " the iniquity of us all," when " by his 
stripes we were healed," we need not wonder that he 
should claim the kingdoms as his own and extend his 
scepter over the wide earth, or " that the heathen should 
be given to him for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts 
of the earth for his possession." 

Down these unfathomable depths what eye can fully 
reach ? This " mystery of God " who can unfold ? We 
know what God reveals and no more. Attempt to 
fathom what is fathomless by unaided reason, and, like a 
blind man walking leaderless on the verge of a precipice, 
or with a guide as blind as himself, we totter, we fall, and 
plunge into utter darkness. Rayless is that depth ! 
unpierced that gloom ! But with the lamp of life in our 
hand we can read of the agony, of the indescribable 
mental torture, and, though the mystery of the anguish of 
the cross is beyond our depth, yet when we see a world 
redeemed, regenerated, disenthralled, and death and the 
grave vanquished and the cross lifted up, even as Moses 
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, as an emblem of 
victory, we may receive as substantial and everlasting 
good what was involved in mystery impenetrable; what 
we could not understand, and which, consequently, we 
were disposed to reject as unworthy of our reason, and as 
imposing too high a claim on our credulity. 

By referring to the psalm of David above spoken of, 
which deals with the pain and agony of the cross, and 
that inward, unspeakable torture which a violated law 
demands, a law " holy, just and good," we may form some 
faint conjecture of the scene on Calvary and the anguish 



The Renewed Earth. 93 

and despairing cry in the garden which purchased our 
salvation, and released the earth and the world from the 
galling chain of sin and death, and proclaimed freedom to 
all those who sleep in the dust — their final and eternal 
emancipation from the grave. The earth redeemed from 
" the curse " by such means — means which none but God 
himself could apply — is it worth no more in the eye of 
God than a piece of old parchment, to be rolled up and 
put away for good, or to be regarded as so much rubbish 
fit only to be burned ? 

When treading the wine-press alone, while of the people 
there was none with him, this was some of the crying 
from that wounded heart — all the grief that can be 
expressed in words : " I am poured out like water, and all 
my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is 
melted in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried 
up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws, 
and thou hast brought me into the dust of death. For 
dogs have compassed me; the assembly of the wicked 
have inclosed me; they pierced my hands and my feet. 
I may tell all my bones ; they look and stare upon me. 
They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon 
my vesture. But be not thou far from me, O Lord; O 
my strength, haste thee to help me. Deliver my soul 
from the sword ; my darling from the power of the dog. 
Save me from the lion's mouth, for thou hast heard me 
from the horns of the unicorns." * 

And again : " I am a worm, and no man ; a reproach of 
men, and despised of the people. All they that see me laugh 
me to scorn ; they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, 
saying: He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver 
him; let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him."f 

At the opening of this remarkable psalm we have those 

* Psalm xxii., 14-21. 1 Psalm xxii., 6, 7, 8. 



94 The Renewed Earth. 

despairing words of Christ Jesus the Lord, dying on the 
cross : " My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? 
Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words 
of my roaring ? O my God ! I cry in the day-time, but 
thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not 
silent. But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the 
praises of Israel." * 

Mournful as the psalm is, interwoven with accents of 
the deepest distress, portraying certain striking incidents 
in the crucifixion, covering the mind with the mantle of 
gloom, it turns, ere it closes, into a triumphal song, and 
anticipates the time, foreshadowed under the sound of the 
seventh trumpet, when " the kingdoms of this world shall 
become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ, and 
he shall reign forever and ever." Flowing out of the 
death and burial of Christ and his being raised from the 
dead on the third day, according to the oath which God 
sware unto David " that Christ should sit on his throne," 
we read as the fruit of the sufferings of Christ Jesus the 
Lord : "All the ends of the world shall remember and turn 
unto the Lord : and all the kindreds of the nations shall 
worship before thee. For the kingdom is the Lord's; and 
he is the governor among the nations." t 

So also we read in another psalm : " Yea, all kings shall 
fall down before him : all nations shall serve him." \ 

And again: "All nations whom thou hast made shall 
come and worship before thee, O Lord ; and shall glorify 
thee." § 

In the psalm from which we have already quoted so 
much at length, we have a lively picture of the extent, 
duration and prosperity of the Redeemer's kingdom, and 

* Psalm xxii., i, 2, 3. t Psalm xxii., 27, 28. % Psalm Ixxii. 11. 
§ Psalm lxxxvi. 9. 



The Re fiew ed Earth. 95 

the exaltation of his name throughout all the earth. 
There is not any reference to heaven whatever; it all 
belongs to this earth; the glory, the kingdom, the power, 
the blessedness. " They shall fear thee, O God, the king, 
as long as the sun and moon endure, throughout all 
generations. He shall come down like rain upon the 
mown grass; as showers that water the earth. In his 
days shall the righteous flourish, and abundance of peace 
so long as the moon endureth. He shall have dominion 
also from sea to sea, and" (not confined to the narrow 
precincts of the land of Israel) "from the river unto the 
ends of the earth. They that dwell in the wilderness shall 
bow before him, and his enemies shall lick the dust. His 
name shall endure forever : his name shall be continued 
as long as the sun : and men shall be blessed in him : all 
nations shall call him blessed. Blessed be the Lord God, 
the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things. And 
blessed be his glorious name forever: and let the whole 
earth be filled with his glory ; Amen, and Amen." # 

Is there any disparagement of the earth here ? Have 
we not here "a king, nay, the king of glory, reigning in 
righteousness, and princes ruling in judgment " ? What 
especially also characterizes this reign, this kingdom of the 
Lord's, and distinguishes it from the kingdoms of this 
world, is that it sets up its banner in behalf of the poor 
and the oppressed. They are the objects of its peculiar 
care, of its deepest solicitude. It is not the great men of 
the earth so much,, the mighty and the wealthy, that bear 
tyrannous sway, but those of low degree, those that have 
felt the heavy hand of the oppressor grinding them down 
into the dust. Thus we read: " He shall judge the poor 
of the people, he shall save the children of the needy, and 

* Psalm Ixxii., 5-9, 17, 18, 19. 



96 The Renewed Ea7'th. 

shall break in pieces the oppressor. For he shall deliver 
the needy when he crieth; the poor, also, and him that 
hath no helper. He shall spare the poor and needy, and 
shall save the souls of the needy. He shall redeem their 
soul from deceit and violence, and precious shall their 
blood be in his sight." * 

The prophetic eye of David foresaw all this. " He, 
being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with 
an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to 
the flesh, he would raise up Christ [from the dead] to sit 
on his throne," saw pass before him, as if it had been 
present, a thousand years as but a moment of time ; " how 
God would raise up an horn of salvation for us in the 
house of his servant David : as he spake by the mouth of 
his holy prophets, which have been since the world 
began." t 

What a day of beauty and of peace will that be, how 
changed the face of the earth, how glorious the uprising 
of the sun, how sweet its setting, how happy the people 
that are in such a case, when not a taint breathes in the 
air or a sigh burdens the earth, when, indeed, " the 
mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little 
hills, by righteousness." \ To add to the completeness of 
the picture, "a king shall reign in righteousness, and a 
man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a 
covert from the tempest ; as rivers of water in a dry place, 
as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land."§ 

Led, like the Israelites, by a pillar of cloud in the day- 
time and a pillar of fire in the night-time while traveling 
through the wilderness of the world, what a Canaan of 
plenty, of rich abundance, of fertile fields, of brooks and 

* Psalm lxxii., 4, 12, 13, 14. t Luke i., 69, 70. \ Psalm lxxii. 3. 
§ Isaiah xxxii., 1, 2. 



The Renewed Earth. 97 

rivers, of all that is "pleasant to the eye and good for 
food" in this new earth — his "footstool" — has God 
prepared for his creature man ! This consecrated earth, 
which in the very beginning he made for man, designed 
by his Creator especially for his abode; suited to him; 
adapted to his nature and wants, and blooming with 
perennial beauty; restored by breath divine to perhaps 
more than its first estate; "the curse " removed ; blessed 
with the presence of its Maker ; adorned and enriched by 
" the tree of life planted in the midst of the garden," 
accessible to all, — what will be wanting to the completion 
of the happiness and perfection of God's universal creation 
dwelling on this renovated earth ? 



CHAPTER III. 

Jerusalem, the City of the Great King. 

BUT while the eye glances over all the earth, while 
" the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise 
to spring forth before all the nations," * while the king- 
dom is the Lord's and he is the governor among the 
nations," his peculiar smile rests upon the land of Israel, 
as we read: "For the Lord hath chosen Zion; he hath 
desired it for his habitation. This is my rest forever; 
here will I dwell, for I have desired it." t And lest by 
any possibility there should be a mistake as to the exact 
meaning of the word "Zion" in this place, it stands in 
immediate connection with the oath God sware unto 
David that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, 
he would raise up Christ from the dead to sit on the 
throne of David, saying, " The Lord hath sworn in truth 
unto David : he will not turn from it ; of the fruit of thy 
body will I set upon thy throne." % 

* Isaiah Ixi. n. t Psalm cxxxii., 13, 14. } Psalm cxxxii. 11. 



The Renewed Earth. 99 

The Zion that the Lord hath chosen, that he hath 
desired for his habitation, where he has set up his rest 
forever, -where he will dwell, is thus spoken of in another 
of the psalms of David : " Great is the Lord, and greatly 
to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of 
his holiness. Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole 
earth is Mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of 
the great king. God is known in her palaces for a refuge." * 

So, also, in the following passage we have a similar 
reference : " Why leap ye, ye high hills ? this is the hill 
which God desireth to dwell in \ yea, the Lord will dwell 
in it forever." f 

We have also the following concerning Zion, " the city 
of our God " : " His foundation is in the holy mountains. 
The Lord loveth the gates of Zion more than all the 
dwellings of Jacob. Glorious things are spoken of thee, 
O city of God." \ So also we read as follows concerning 
Mount Zion : " The Lord chose the tribe of Judah, the 
Mount Zion which he loved. And he built his sanctuary 
like high palaces, like the earth which he hath established 
forever. He chose David, also, his servant, and took him 
from the sheepfolds ; from following the ewes great with 
young he brought him to feed Jacob his people, and Israel 
his inheritance." § 

How vain, foolish, impotent and blind to give to Zion 
proper any other than its rightful name as understood and 
applied by those prophetic passages from the psalms of 
David which we have just quoted, and which look not so 
much to the past grandeur of the city as to its future 
pre-eminence, when Christ shall sit upon the throne of his 
father David, and the Lord shall "make Jerusalem a praise 

* Psalm xlviii., i, 2, 3. t Psalm lxviii. 16. \ Psalm Ixxxvii., 1, 2, 3. 
§ Psalm lxxviii., 68-71. 



ioo The Renewed Earth. 

in the earth";* or, as Zephaniah the prophet puts it, — 
speaking not of the past but of the future, — when its glory 
and its greatness will eclipse all the cities of the nations, 
whether of modern or of ancient date: "At that time will 
I bring you again" (referring to "the remnant of Israel"), 
" even in the time that I gather you : for I will make you 
a name and a praise among all people of the earth, when 
I turn back your captivity before your eyes, saith the 
Lord." t 

Surely this time has not come yet. Jerusalem has not 
yet risen above the desolation of ages ; it is yet trodden 
down of the Gentiles; its praise is not yet in the earth — 
among all people of the earth. It still lies bleeding at 
every pore; it is still in a good degree " desolate," as our 
Lord some two thousand years ago said it would be, 
"until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled." When their 
lease of life, according to their measure, or, rather, term, 
shall have run out, then, and not till then, as we have 
shown in the former part of this work, will " the fullness 
of Israel " be ushered in, and Jerusalem will resume more 
than her former place among the nations of the earth. 

It is of this coming day, when the city shall no more 
be termed Forsaken, Desolate, that Isaiah thus speaks : 
" Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken, neither shall 
thy land any more be termed Desolate ; but thou shalt be 
called Hephzi-bah (my delight is in her), and thy land 
Beulah (married); for the Lord delighteth in thee, and 
thy land shall be married." % 

It is of the time to come, when Jerusalem, no longer 
trodden down of the Gentiles, with its glory gone and 
spoiled of its riches, "weeping sore in the night," as of 
old, " and her tears on her cheeks," " shall be a crown of 
glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the 

* Isaiah Ixii. 7. t Zephaniah iii. 20. \ Isaiah lxii. 4. 



The Renewed Earth. 101 

hand of her God," that Isaiah thus further, as the mouth- 
piece of the Almighty, speaks of her : " For Zion's sake 
will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I will 
not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as bright- 
ness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burnetii. 
And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all 
kings thy glory : and thou shalt be called by a new name, 
which the mouth of the Lord shall name." * 

But to go somewhat more into detail, and to show that 
what we are saying is not altogether a dream of prophecy, 
or refers to something altogether different, we turn to the 
prophecy of Ezekiel, where we find, according to the new 
and changed apportionment of the land, when the remnant 
of Israel shall have returned to the land of their fathers, 
the exact location of the city in the center of the twelve 
tribes, with its size, its shape, its suburbs and the land 
appertaining to it, " the increase whereof shall be for food 
unto them that serve the city," and, also, above all and 
before all, the name of the city, its crowning glory, so 
significant of "the righteousness thereof that goeth forth 
as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that 
burnetii," to wit, " The Lord is there." f 

We have here to repeat what we have said before, how 
indissolubly connected is Jerusalem, with all its belongings, 
with the coming glory that is to fill the earth, according 
to the declaration of the Almighty ! There is no help for 
this. From this central point, as has already been said, 
light is to radiate and illumine the world. Within the 
limits, therefore, of the Holy Land, we are obliged to 
confine ourselves in our attempt to delineate with any 
degree of particularity the coming future, because the 
Bible does so. This is especially true of the Holy City, 
Jerusalem, because of its name, Jehovah-shamma, " The 

* Isaiah lxii., i, 2. t Ezekiel xlviii. 35. 



102 The Renewed Earth. 

Lord is there" and all the tender and thrilling associations 
that cluster about the sacred spot where our Lord was 
crucified and expiated the sins of the whole world. Thus, 
in addition to and in illustration of the name of the city, 
we quote the following from Jeremiah (and is it not 
directly to the point, implying also most assuredly the 
return of the Jews to their own land ?) : "At that time they 
shall call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord, aiid all the 
nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the Lord, to 
Jerusalem : neither shall they walk any more after the 
imagination of their evil heart. In those days the house 
of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel, and they 
shall come together out of the land of the north " (in a 
very subordinate sense this may refer primarily to the 
return from Babylon) " to the land that the Lord hath 
given to your fathers." * 

We will quote still from another of the holy prophets, 
Zechariah, who abounds in predictions respecting the 
future of our earth, the coming of Christ, and foretells the 
wondrous period when " the Lord shall be king over all the 
earth." He also predicts the coming day when " upon 
the bells of the horses there shall be Holiness unto the 
Lord ; and the pots in the Lord's house shall be like the 
bowls before the altar. Yea, every pot in Jerusalem and 171 
Judah shall be holme ss unto the Lord of hosts " (surely, 
up to this time, nothing like this has been seen) ; " and 
all they that sacrifice shall come and take of them, and 
seethe therein; and in that day there shall be no more 
the Canaanite in the house of the Lord of hosts." t 

The prophet Zechariah thus celebrates the name and 
the praise of Jerusalem in coming years, when " the 
mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the 
top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills ; 

* Jeremiah i;i., 17, 18. t Zechariah xiv., 20, 21. 



The Renewed Earth. 103 

and all nations shall flow unto it " : * " Sing and rejoice, 
O daughter of Zion ; for lo, I come, and I will dwell in the 
midst of thee, saith the Lord. And many nations shall be 
joined to the Lord, and shall be my people; and I will 
dwell in the midst of thee, and thou shalt know that the 
Lord of hosts hath sent me " (so strongly the prophet 
speaks of himself) " unto thee. And the Lord shall inherit 
Judah, his portion in the holy land, and shall choose 
Jerusaletn again. Be silent, O all flesh, before the Lord; 
for he is raised up out of his holy habitation." f 

May we not say, in view of these things, " Glorious 
things are spoken of thee, O city of God" ? May we not 
also say, in view of the glory to come, when Jerusalem 
shall be "a praise in the earth," or, as Zephaniah says, 
when the Lord shall make his ancient people (the people 
and the city are one) " a name and a praise among all 
people of the earth," may we not say, in view of all these 
things : " Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth 
is Mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the 
great king ; God is known in her palaces for a refuge " ? % 

* Isaiah ii. 2. t Zechariah ii., 10-13. t Psalm xlviii., 2, 3. 



CHAPTER IV. 



The Immensity of the Temple to be Built upon the Return 
of the Remtiafit of Israel to their own Land. 



IT is remarkable that the greater part of the eight last 
chapters of the prophecy of Ezekiel — in some respects 
so dark and difficult of interpretation — relate to the building 
of the temple of the Lord anew, and that on a scale so large 
and possibly so magnificent as to remind you of the prodig- 
ious magnitude of the temples of Luxor and Carnac on the 
Nile, in the land of Egypt, with their endless surroundings 
and accessories. It is hardly possible to conceive, as 
you read, the amount of the skill and labor, the exquisite 
workmanship, lavished on these works of an age so long 
past that little is known respecting them. Though pro- 
fessedly built for the purpose of religious worship, and 
though debased by the various objects of worship to which 
they were respectively dedicated, yet the very fact of their 
immensity, the great space of ground they occupied, the 
vast porticoes, the avenues of sphinxes, the great length 

104 



The Re-neived Earth. 105 

of the colonnades, the squares, the stupendous gateways, 
and, in effect, the whole, forming one immense temple of 
worship such as the world has never seen since, of itself 
raises in the mind such a sense of religion, of its sacredness, 
though debased by the vileness of man, as to lead us to 
adore .Him, the supreme Creator, who originally made 
man after his own image and according to his own 
likeness. 

As we contemplate these ruins of an almost unknown 
past, still to some extent in a state of preservation suffi- 
cient to enable us to judge of their magnitude, their 
costliness and the perfection of the artistic skill lavished 
on them, and think what has been done under almost the 
lowest conceivable form of religion, — as if men were 
brutes and God dethroned, — what may we not look for in 
the time to come, of a temple built under the divine 
superintendence, and chiefly and above all things for the 
glory of his most holy and ever blessed name ? 

There was this peculiarity common to Luxor and 
Carnac and the temple of old in Jerusalem : while the 
courts around were large, spacious, highly adorned and 
enriched with precious gifts and rich sculpture and 
beautiful workmanship, the sanctuary itself, the holiest of 
all, was comparatively small. This was true of Luxor 
and Carnac, as well as of Jerusalem, and the thought will 
obtrude itself that, like the temple of the Lord in Jerusa- 
lem, these magnificent structures, at an earlier day, may 
have and in all probability did receive their first impulse 
from him who made the heavens, and "stretched them out 
as a curtain, and spread them out as a tent to dwell in." 

In the very center of the twelve tribes, according to the 
new allotment of the land, when repossessed by the 
children of Israel, what is called " an oblation unto the 

5* 



106 The Renewed Earth. 

Lord, an holy portion of the land," # will be reserved, set 
apart and divided into distinct portions or parcels for the 
temple, with its extensive and probably magnificent 
courts, laid out in the shape and after the manner of the 
former temple, with the various chambers, built according 
to one model or pattern, belonging to it. Much the 
larger proportion of the holy oblation — nearly if not 
quite one-half of it — will be appropriated to this sacred 
purpose, while the outlying space attached to it will be so 
large as to afford room for the unnumbered multitudes 
from every part of the earth to worship the Lord at 
Jerusalem. So, of old, all Greece, with the adjacent 
parts, the isles in the ^Egean Sea, with countries more 
remote, were wont to flock every four years, with every 
returning Olympiad, to witness the Olympic games, and 
so to worship the gods of high Olympus. So strong is 
the passion of religion in every age in the human bosom, 
and so involuntarily, in ' one way or another, does the 
heart rise in adoration, now under this form of worship, 
now under that, to the Supreme Being, whether we call 
him " The Unknown God " or not. 

Within the same sacred reservation — this holy oblation 
— is the city to stand; "that city so holy and clean no 
sorrow can breathe in the air," which is to be " the joy of 
the whole earth," whose name is to be "The Lord is there" 
Concerning the size and occupancy of the city, following 
the text, we read as follows: "And ye shall appoint the 
possession of the city five thousand [measures or reeds] 
broad, and five and twenty thousand long, over against 
the oblation of the holy portion ; it shall be for the whole 
house of Israel." f 

But, inasmuch as we have spoken at large of the city 
of our God — the holy city — in the preceding chapter, 

* Ezekiel xlv. i. t Ezekiel xlv. 6. 



The Renewed Earth. 107 

we here just mention its location as placed within the 
sacred limits of that oblation to the Lord, quadrangular in 
its form, a perfect square which is twenty-five thousand 
reeds every way, containing an area, as has been com- 
puted, of some fifty miles more or less, according to the 
reckoning of the size of the reed. 

As in the former temple a wall of some height encom- 
passed the sacred precincts, so in this. A "gate that look- 
eth toward the east " opened into it, and this was the 
chief entrance into the courts of the Lord's house. There 
was a glory at the east gate which reminds us of the cloud 
of glory that hovered over the mercy seat in the holy of 
holies, and from whence, as we read, came forth a voice 
like the voice of many waters, "and the earth shifted with 
the glory of the Lord' 1 * 

We mention it without pretending to explain its 
presence at this point, but to show how hallowed was 
this sanctuary, and to keep alive in the mind the sense of 
the reality of all that the Bible teaches of Christ being 
raised from the dead to sit on the throne of his father 
David, and that this glory in some form symbolized that 
fact, as the bush on fire symbolized the presence of 
Jehovah to Moses at Sinai's base. 

But this symbol at this place did not exclude the per- 
sonal, visible presence of the Lord Jesus Christ in his holy 
temple. It may even have, had a reference to the glory 
that was then filling the earth, as prophetically represented; 
resembling, as it did, in form and appearance, " the vision 
that Ezekiel saw by the river Chebar." Indeed, all these 
radiations of " the excellent glory " do but prefigure the 
glory of the Lord that is yet to fill our earth. 

For thus we read of the actual, visible presence of the 
Lord Jesus Christ in this holy temple, in which, from time 

* Ezekiel xliii. 2. 



108 The Renewed Eai'th. 

to time, all the myriads of the human race from all parts 
of the world, at particular festivals, as, for instance, " from 
one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to 
another, shall come to worship before me, saith the Lord 
of hosts." * 

" And he said unto me, Son of Man, the place of my 
throne, and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will 
dwell in the midst of the children of Israel forever, and 
my holy name shall the house of Israel no more defile ; 
and I will dwell in the midst of them forever."! 

It is with the closing chapters of the prophecy of 
Ezekiel as with the book of Revelation, that while there 
is much that is abstruse, especially the revival of the old 
ceremonial rites of the law, yet some things are clear. We 
can patiently wait until the curtain rises, and what is not so 
clear shall be made so. At the same time, there are some 
things in connection with Jewish rites which bear a strong 
resemblance to the patterns of heavenly things. Perhaps 
some of our notions in regard to heaven are too refined, 
and there is more of what is material even in heaven itself 
than we are apt to think. Certainly we read of thrones 
and dominions there ; this means something. So we read 
of principalities and powers, as if there were different 
orders or ranks of intelligence, and grades of higher order 
than others. So, also, we read of God as " sitting upon a 
throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple." % 
We read, moreover, of "a throne set in heaven," of "four 
and twenty seats on which were seated four and twenty 
elders, clothed in white raiment, and they had on their 
heads crowns of gold." There were also "seven lamps 
burning before the throne," full of meaning. There was 
also " before the throne a sea of glass like unto crystal." 
Surely there is something of the nature of what is material 

* Isaiah lxvi. 23. t Ezekiel xliii. 7. \ Isaiah vi. 1. 



The Renewed Earth. ~ 109 

in these different objects, which most assuredly make part 
of heaven. Or are we to regard all these things as those 
bodiless shadows which ranged the Elysian fields when 
^Eneas, the survivor of ruined Troy, was permitted to visit 
them, and vainly essayed to grasp the shade of Father 
Anchises ? Are not the beings there real existences ? and 
should not the things mentioned as real be real ? It 
is rather a curious hypothesis that nothing is real but 
what we see and feel; what is tangible to us ; what we 
can touch and see. Why ride on a moonbeam when we 
can walk on the earth ? 

We read, also, of " a golden altar," and of " the fire of 
the altar," and of " the golden censer," patterns of things 
in the Jewish ceremonial rites. We read, also, of "trum- 
pets," " golden girdles," " golden vials," all belonging to 
the service of the temple here below, as well as to that 
above. Amid, then, much that is, perhaps, somewhat 
difficult of explanation in these last chapters of Ezekiel, 
yet as they contain also certain things that are patterns of 
the heavenly, why not receive what belongs alike to both ? 
Perhaps heaven is not that impalpable, unreal place that 
we are so much given to make of it. Angels are actively, 
usefully and holily employed, and why not man in every 
stage of his future existence ? 

In this great temple which is to be made with human 
hands, and whither not only the tribes of Jacob will go 
up to worship, but all the nations of earth, why should 
we evince surprise that to a greater or less extent it should 
resemble the temple "set up in heaven"? Who knows 
how great is the resemblance between heaven and earth ? 
The first temple came from the hands of God; it was 
built after the pattern God showed Moses on the holy 
mount. Can any good reason be assigned why God, in 



no • The Renewed Earth. 

the construction of this temple on Zion's holy hill, which 
is obviously to serve the same purpose — the worship of 
Almighty God, — should depart from his original plan ? 

When one notices the general resemblance in the con- 
struction of the temples of Luxor and Carnac to that of the 
holy temple on Mount Moriah, and recollects that the plan 
of the latter came directly from the hand of God, instead 
of regarding it as a copy of the former, in the absence of 
any direct proof to that effect, it is more reasonable to 
suppose that these temples, at a very early period, were 
the product of men who believed in God, and were 
taught and inspired of him. Even in Abraham's time 
we know to a certainty that the kings of Egypt believed 
in God, and feared him with a holy, loving fear. The 
history of Joseph teaches us that religious worship, and 
the fear of one living and true God, had not deteriorated 
in his time as at a later date. And as these immense 
structures were not the work of one age but of many, it is 
fair to suppose that at the first, in a simpler form, like 
Solomon's temple, they were the inspiration of the 
Almighty. At all events, the general resemblance is very 
striking, and this the more so when we are reminded 
that the great temple yet to be built on Zion's hill will be 
reconstructed on the same general plan, and will recall 
the immensity and grandeur of those sublime temples on 
the river Nile, in the land of Egypt — a land consecrated 
by the presence of the holy child Jesus, and concerning 
which we read : " Out of Egypt have I called my Son." * 
A land, a nation, a country that has been a refuge and a 
hiding-place for the Son of God, while he sojourned on 
the earth, must be ever dear to God. 

Lifting up holy hands without fear or doubting, we 
think we may look forward to the erection of an august 

* Hosea xi. i; Matthew li. 15. 



The Renewed Earth. in 

temple, the pattern whereof was shown to Ezekiel so 
many centuries ago, where Christ will appear in person, as 
of old when he was here among men, and where God 
will be worshiped as never before upon the earth, — ■ 
when "the §arth shall be full of the knowledge of the 
Lord as the waters cover the sea." 



CHAPTER V. 



The Boundaries of the Promised Land Greatly Enlarged, 
and a New Division or Arrangeme?it of the La?id when 
Repossessed by the Children of Israel as their Everlasting 
Inheritance. 



IT is usual to denominate the northern and southern 
boundaries of the Holy Land by those old and 
familiar epithets — almost sacred and decisive by long use 
—as from Dan to Beersheba, and to conceive of the river 
Jordan and the Dead Sea as about the terminus on the 
east, with the Mediterranean Sea on the west side. A 
narrow strip of land, indeed, for the wonders and miracles 
that were done on it, and for a nation so growing and 
prosperous as that for whose children for a thousand 
generations God selected it from among all others on the 
face of the earth as their chosen inheritance. Even, in 
fact, if this were so — if from the very first its limits were 
so circumscribed, it would not unfavorably compare with 
little Greece, that land cf highest culture, and where all 






The Renewed Earth. 113 

that genius could do to refine, purify and exalt man to his 
true dignity as the masterpiece of creation was done, but 
more or less in vain. Indeed, it would seem as if these 
two states or nations, almost adjoining, were set over one 
against the other to show us how far the wisdom of man, 
unassisted by divine revelation, was from teaching us in 
all its inconceivable fullness the knowledge of God. How 
pure, simple, sublime is the true theology of the one to 
the vain philosophy of the other ; how weak the highest 
reason of man to the wisdom of God. 

Setting this aside, however, and returning to the theme 
before us, the true and enlarged boundaries of the Holy 
Land, as they were laid down under the covenant made by 
God with Abraham, and renewed with Isaac and Jacob, 
and as they will be in the latter days, when " even the 
first dominion, the kingdom, shall come to the daughter 
of Jerusalem," * we will find that the heritage is neither so 
small or confined as for the most part we have supposed it 
to be. Instead of the line on the north being in the latitude 
of Dan, as if that, indeed, were the northern extremity 
toward the east of this highly favored land, we read 
(comparing Numbers with Ezekiel) : " This shall be your 
north border. From the great sea ye shall point out imto 
you Mount Hor." f This is far, far to the north of Dan. 
To be a little more definite : "From Mount Hor ye shall 
point out you,r border unto the entrance of HamathP \ 
This brings us to the mouth of the river Orontes, on 
which Antioch is situated, and not to the mouth of the 
river Leontes, which is on a line with and opposite 
to Dan. The Leontes is this side of Lebanon, while the 
entrance of Hamath is some hundred and fifty miles to 
the north, and is overlooked by Mount Hor, or, as it is 

* Micah iv. 8. t Ezekiel xlvii. 15. + Numbers xxxiv. 8. 



H4 The Renewed Earth. 

also called, Mount Casius. So much further to the 
northward are we to trace the line of the coast of the 
Mediterranean Sea before we reach the extreme northern 
border of Palestine, as drawn and included in the cove- 
nant God made with Abraham when he " lifted up his 
hand " to give it to him and his posterity. The southern 
border or boundary is commensurate with that on the 
north, and extends, or is to extend, from the river of 
Egypt, that is, the Nile, to what is called the great river 
Euphrates. The border on the south will reach to Kadesh 
Barnea, in the vicinity of that wilderness where Israel 
wandered, fed from heaven, for the space of forty years. 
Idumea, or Edom, will be also included in this grand 
range of territory, with Petra, the city of the rock. 

To the east of the river Jordan, those nations that were 
once so powerful, with so rich a territory and cities so 
numerous, the Ammonites, the Moabites, with the fertile 
grain region beyond, extending south of Damascus, with 
the city of this name and its lovely environs, will form 
part also of the heritage of Jacob. It has been calculated 
that the whole land of Israel, when the twelve tribes 
are settled anew in the land of their inheritance, " reck- 
oning the average breadth of the promised land at 
five hundred miles, and its length five hundred miles, 
would exceed, in superficial extent, the largest kingdom 
of Europe, Russia alone excepted," while added to this 
large domain will be included both Assyria and Egypt, 
the latter alone containing " an area of one hundred and 
fifty thousand square miles " ; * while " the former, includ- 

* The reader is referred to Dr. Keith's excellent work, " Land of Israel," 
published by Harper & Brothers so far back as the year 1844. No student, no 
lover of the Bible, should be without this book. It is replete with interest and 
filled to overflowing with information on the subject of which it treats. Dr. Keith 
was author of the work entitled "The Evidence of Prophecy," a very popular 
work in its day. 



T Vie Renewed Earth. 115 

ing Mesopotamia, and 'stretching beyond the Tigris as 
far as the mountains of Media,' * and from the mountains 
of Armenia to the Persian Gulf, leaves no region that may 
not be regarded as in some sense an appendage to the 
kingdom of Israel, from the eastern shores of the Medi- 
terranean to the borders of Persia and vicinity of the 
Caspian." f 

The central situation of Palestine, and its propinquity 
to Asia, Africa and Europe, has been pointed out, with its 
ready access by sea to " the Pacific and Atlantic and the 
lesser oceans of the globe," and might lead us to see in 
its peculiar location that mighty hand which " hath given 
the earth to the sons of men, and hath set the bounds of 
their habitation." 

This singular land, so remarkable in its past history, 
and surely destined to be still more conspicuous and 
remarkable in the years that are to come, is yet to be, we 
are told, " the glory of all lands," and its accessibility to 
and from all parts of the world would seem to throw at 
least a partial light upon such a striking passage as the 
following : " Yea, many people and strong nations shall 
come to seek the Lord of Hosts in Jerusalem, and to pray 
before the Lord. Thus saith the Lord of Hosts: In 
those days it shall come to pass that ten men shall take 
hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall take 
hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go 
with you ; for we have heard that God is with you." | 

It hardly belongs to the plan of this work to take into 
consideration the new arrangement of the twelve tribes of 
Israel, upon the return to the land of their fathers, and we 
only mention it here to show that Ezekiel is not laying 

* Gibbon's History, vol. iv., p. 166. 
t Keith's " Land of Israel," with a slight verbal alteration. \ Zechariah viii., 22, 23. 



ii6 The Re?ietved Earth. 

out an imaginary or visionary division of the land, but 
that what he says concerning the allotment to the different 
tribes is as real and as sure to take place as that which was 
made under Joshua according to the original apportionment. 
As far north as the entrance of Hamath, by the mouth of 
the Orontes, extending in an easterly direction, " as one 
goeth to the city of Hamath " (some hundred miles to the 
north of Damascus) " and Hazar-enan," the portion of the 
several tribes begins, going from west to east — how far 
east is not stated; doubtless, as the half-tribe of Ma- 
nasseh and Reuben and Gad are not excepted, but 
ranged in order with the rest, all the tribes, according to 
their portion, will probably extend far beyond the river 
Jordan eastward to the Euphrates, the great Arabian 
desert " blossoming as the rose, waters " (according to the 
word of prophecy) " breaking out in the wilderness and 
streams in the desert"; while this once immense, sterile 
and, toward the south, almost impassable parched region 
shall become as the garden of the Lord. 

What an inheritance have we here for Jacob, for the 
children of Israel, for the chosen of the Lord ! And how 
closely allied is it with " the glory of the Lord that is to 
fill the whole earth," with "the restitution of all things"! 
O land chosen of the Lord ! dearer to him than all lands. 
Land of patriarchs and prophets ! consecrated by the feet 
of Christ, — those feet that traversed not beyond its narrow 
but sacred limits. Land of the holy apostles, servants of 
the Lord Jesus ! How enlarged will be thy boundaries, 
how wide and spacious thy domain, with Egypt and 
Assyria adjoined to thee and serving as handmaids! 
From the top of Amanus to the Persian Gulf, over the 
vast, flowery plain, once a desert ; from the Jordan to the 
Euphrates, along the Mediterranean to the Nile, bordering 



The Re?iewed Earth, 117 

the Red Sea, we have a country capacious indeed, 
sufficient to answer every demand that will be made upon 
it, boundless in fertility, and resting now and forever 
under the shadow of the Almighty. 

As to its future continued prosperity and the people 
who shall inhabit it, thus graciously speaketh the Lord 
concerning his people Israel: "As the days of a tree are 
the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy 
the work of their hands." # But the most remarkable 
passage, showing the long continuance — may we not say 
endlessness ? — of this happy state of things, is as follows (it 
is the Lord who speaketh after this manner concerning 
the future of Israel) : " For as the new heavens and the 
new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, 
saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name 
remain." f 

How long the new heavens and the new earth shall 
remain we know not. Will they ever pass away ? We 
are in the hands of the Infinite; a wise, holy and just 
God, who delighteth in the happiness, not the misery, and 
seeketh the highest good of the creatures he has made. 
One thing, at least, is perfectly clear from the above: 
that the Jews as a people will remain, not isolated, but 
distinct from other nations, retaining their name, handing 
it down from age to age, from generation to generation, 
while the new heaven and the new earth, " wherein 
dwelleth righteousness," which he will make, shall remain 
as a perpetual monument of his faithfulness, and the 
truth of his ever enduring, unchangeable word. 

* Isaiah lxv. 22. t Isaiah lxvi. 22. 



V. 



THE RESTITUTION OF ALL THINGS. 



CHAPTER I. 



Light. 



AMID the darkness of time, the sorrows of the world, 
the mystery that shrouds our being and which 
vainly we try to penetrate, there is a light shining in a 
dark place which, if we are careful to follow and be led 
by it, will sooner or later dispel the darkness, disperse the 
gloom and mystery, and put our tottering feet in a large 
and wealthy place — in a world of light, inaccessible for 
the most part to us now, but sure to burst upon us at last, 
never more to be extinguished. This light has been let 
down as a lamp from heaven upon our darkened earth. 
Mild is its radiance, soft its luster — not fitful or flickering, 
but steady, uniform, unchanging, like the source whence 
it emanates. This is not all. The very embodiment 
of light itself has been in our world; he walked in 
light; he came among us clothed with light as with a 
garment. This was "The Day Spring" from on high. 
Before him darkness retired, and in good measure the 



122 The Restitution of All Things. 

gloom of time passed away and the vail was lifted that 
enshrouded eternity. Life and immortality were brought 
to light in a clearer sense than ever before by his presence 
among men. Even the grave yielded up its dark secret, 
and " no longer we rove in conjecture forlorn." 

We do not undervalue the written word. It is impos- 
sible to express our reverence for it. It is pure and 
undefiled. God inspired holy men to write it. On the 
roll of time none stand so high as patriarchs and prophets 
— God's chosen servants and messengers, the world's 
greatest benefactors and the most illustrious of our race. 
Taken into the secret confidence of God; sharers of his 
thoughts and designs; to whom "the mystery of God," 
hidden from all other men, was revealed from the begin- 
ning of the world ; men with whom God conversed as in 
open day, and who heard his voice as one man speaking 
to another (so near does God come to man), though they 
did not see his face. These were God-men, chosen and 
sent of God, as the ages went on, to reveal his will to 
man ; honored messengers of the most high God. 

But here is The Word, which was in the beginning 
itself; not the written, but the living word! the word 
which spake and it was done, which commanded and it 
stood fast. To speak after the manner of men, to express 
that which cannot be expressed, to adapt it to the need 
of our Lord's human nature, which he took on him when 
born of a virgin — from the bosom of the Father, so to 
speak, Christ came, full of grace and truth. The law 
came by Moses, old, stern and rigid, unbending, exacting; 
but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. The portals of 
love flew wide open; the flaming sword which guarded the 
tree of life was withdrawn. Words of love, of tenderness, 
of forgiveness, were spoken such as were never so distinctly 



The Restitution of All Things. 123 

heard before, and justice, relaxing its strong hold upon 
man because its stern, rigorous but just demand had 
been met, smiled and assented. Then, indeed, light 
broke forth as the morning; the shadows of night fled 
away, and the world awoke to an eternal day. 

How is it possible ever to form a just conception of the 
amazing mystery of godliness ? God was manifest in the 
flesh. Saith the apostle St. John, who was admitted 
nearer to Christ than any of the apostles, and to whom 
was revealed, in significant symbols and in visions, the 
mysteries of the last days and of the end of the world : 
" That which was from the beginning, which we have 
heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have 
looked upon, and our hands have handled of the word of 
life, declare we unto you." * ■ 

Inconceivable mystery ! The apostle Paul, in words 
deep, sublime, immeasurable, and in the same spirit and 
to the same intent as John, also speaks of this great 
mystery. " And without controversy great is the mystery 
of godliness : God was manifest in the flesh, justified in 
the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, 
believed on in the world, received up into glory." f 

The blending of the two natures — "God in Christ 
reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their 
trespasses unto them," % sublimest of all things! — is nowhere 
shown with greater clearness than in that most wonderful 
chapter, the fortieth of the prophecy of Isaiah. Here 
language spends itself and exhausts its imagery in 
describing, or attempting to describe, what no language 
can reach — Jesus as God. While on the one hand we 
see him " in fashion as a man," with his pastoral crook, 
"feeding his flock like a shepherd, gathering the lambs 
with his arm, carrying them in his bosom and gently 

* I. John i., 1, 3. t I. Timothy iii. 16. \ II. Corinthians v. 19. 



124 The Restitutio7i of All Things. 

leading those that are with young/' (what a pleasing 
landscape picture, full of repose and softness !) on the 
other, as if riding on the wind and directing the storm, he 
is described as that High and Holy One who inhabiteth 
eternity ; who " measureth the waters in the hollow of 
his hand, and meteth out heaven with the span, and 
comprehendeth the dust of the earth in a measure, and 
weigheth the mountains in scales and the hills in a 
balance." * 

We further read concerning this " child that was born, 
this son that was given," of whom it was said that " the 
government shall be upon his shoulder " : " Behold, the 
nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the 
small dust of the balance : behold, he taketh up the isles 
as a very little thing. All nations before him are as 
nothing, and they are counted to him less than nothing 
and vanity." t 

This " infant of days," how mighty, how powerful ! 
How little and feeble is man beside him, with all his 
powers and his almost infinite capacity ! . This same Jesus, 
who is "over all, God blessed forever," is thus further 
described : " Have ye not known ? have ye not heard ? 
hath it not been told you from the beginning ? have ye 
not understood from the foundations of the earth ? It is 
he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the 
inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth 
out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a 
tent to dwell in : that bringeth the princes to nothing ; he 
maketh the judges of the earth as vanity." % 

This, this is "the Light of the World." He hath 
brought down heaven to the earth. We need not go up 
to the heavens to look for him there, nor down to the 
depths to find him there; he is here among men; his 

* Isaiah xl., n, 12. t Isaiah xl., 15, 17. \ Isaiah xl., 21, 22, 23. 



The Restitution of All Things. 125 

fellows by his assumption of our nature. Yet is he God ; 
very and eternal God ; and he is here in person as the 
Son of Man to make good his word, — " To turn the heart 
of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the 
children to their fathers, that the curse may be removed 
from the face of the earth." * 

* Malachi iv. 6. 



CHAPTER II. 



The Restitution of all Things the Great Theme of Prophecy 
since the World Began. 



WE have, of course, more or less alluded to this 
great theme, the final restitution of all things, the 
times of refreshing coming from the presence of the 
Lord, in the preceding part of this work; but now we 
wish to speak of it a little more in detail, to make its 
scope, if we can, more definite, and bring it practically 
more closely home to our hearts and our bosoms. 
It has a deep hold upon our hearts, as it has had, in 
former ages and through past generations, upon all the 
prophets since time began. This above all things was 
revealed to them as a light shining on the dark bosom of 
time, not, indeed, as distinct from the promise of a 
Saviour, but as coeval with it, as embracing it and being 
embraced by it. They both revolve like two suns in the 
same cycle of ages, though, of course, the promise of a 
Saviour — the Star of Bethlehem — is the foundation of the 

126 



The Restitution of All Things. 127 

other, that on which it securely and everlastingly rests. 
Still, you cannot think of the one, or bring it into play, 
without thinking of the other, though in the order of time 
one must necessarily precede the other. But they are 
bound together by an irresistible destiny. 

We confine ourselves in this place to a single point — 
all the holy prophets from the beginning, without a single 
exception, have spoken of these coming times, as if they 
could not be duly qualified nor properly perform their great 
work without the knowledge from on high of the glorious 
termination of their labors and sufferings, though they 
might die without the sight; yet, dying, they would die 
fully believing in the glory to come. And this is the halo 
that now rests upon their graves, and encircles their 
tombs, and enriches their dust, until indeed Jesus shall 
come, and, seated on the throne of David, place this 
world back " in a holy and happy state." 

In one of those discourses with the Jews where our Lord 
vindicates himself from their aspersions and maintains the 
superiority belonging to him, and all the more freely and 
boldly as the end was near at hand, he says to them : 
" Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw 
it and was glad." * What day ? The day which God had 
spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the 
world began — the day of the restitution of all things. 
This day of gladness, this insight into the future, was not 
confined to Abraham alone : Abel, Enoch, Noah, Sarah, 
also, as well as Abraham, — all these saw this day from afar 
off and rejoiced in the glory of God. Faith in God and 
in his word of promise, made from the beginning, brought 
this far-off day nigh to them. 'Tis true, also, as Abra- 
ham saw beforehand the affliction of his people in the 
land of Egypt, so all these, who "with the elders by 

* John viii. 56. 



128 The Restitution of All Things. 

faith obtained a good report," * foresaw the sufferings of 
Christ ; this was not hidden from their eyes ; but they saw 
also, with holy rapture, " the glory that should follow." f 
We have proof positive of this. " These all died in faith, 
not having received the promises, but having seen them afar 
off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and 
confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the 
earth." % 

On another occasion, at an earlier period of our Lord's 
ministry, he said privately to his disciples : " Blessed are 
the eyes which see the things that ye see ; for I tell you, 
that many prophets and kings have desired to see those 
things which ye see, and have not seen them, and to hear 
those things which ye hear, and have not heard them." § 
Yet what a glimmering view did the disciples have of 
them at that time, and it was not until after the resurrec- 
tion of Christ from the dead and receiving the gift of 
the Holy Ghost that they understood the true end and 
aim of Christ's sufferings and death, — neither more nor 
less than the restoring of all things and obliterating from 
the face of the earth all the marks which sin had made 
upon its once fair surface, and, over and above all else, 
"swallowing up death in victory." It was this ravishing 
sight at the end of all which kings and prophets saw; not 
that the way to it, traced by tears and blood, was hidden 
from them ; but the presence of Christ upon the earth, his 
appearance among men, would be a sure and glorious 
pledge of the emancipation of our race from the bondage of 
sin and death, with the reign of Christ on this our earth ; 
" for he must reign until he hath put all enemies under 
his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." || 

* Hebrews xi., i, 2. 1 1. Peter i. 11. \ Hebrews xi. 13. § Luke x., 23, 24. 
|| I. Corinthians xv., 25, 26. 



The Restitution of All Tlwigs. 129 

In the discourse that the holy apostle Peter delivered 
on the day of Pentecost, amid the effulgence of that 
memorable day, he lighted on these words in relation 
to this most deeply interesting subject. It is in part an 
exhortation to the men of Israel to believe in Christ, to 
receive him as their Messiah, notwithstanding all that had 
so lately passed, — though they had rejected and crucified 
him, — so that when the times of refreshing should come 
from the presence of the Lord, having been sharers of 
his cross, death and passion, they may reign with him in 
life everlasting. Not only so, they may have the benefit 
of his death now, and rejoice through the whole of their 
natural lives, and in the hour of death, at the glory which 
will be revealed at his coming. These are the words : 
" Repent ye, therefore, and be converted, that your sins 
may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing " (this, 
you perceive, is in the future) " shall come from the 
presence of the Lo7'd; and" (continuing his subject as 
following from what he had just said) u he shall send Jesus 
Christ, which before was preached unto you : whom the 
heaven must receive until the times of restitutio?i of all 
things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy 
prophets since the world began." * 

He also subjoins on this subject words to this effect : 
" Yea, and all the pi'ophets from Samuel, and those that 
follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold 
of these days." j This is what binds the past with the 
future; and, amid the gloom of time and the darkness of 
sin, bids us hope on, hope ever. Even the sages of 
antiquity caught gleams of light from this same celestial 
source, and never wholly despaired of the future of our 
world. And why should they, even with their imperfect 

* Acts iii., 19-21. t Acts iii. 24. 

6* 



130 The Restitution of All Things. 

conceptions of God ? Dark, indeed, must have been their 
minds not to have seen from the frame of the universe 
that the hand that made it " was divine." Drawing their 
conclusions from what they saw, " the heavens declaring the 
glory of God, and the firmament showing forth his handi- 
work," how could they for a moment doubt that a being 
so great, so powerful, whose goodness was so manifest in 
the works of his hands, and so adapted to man's wants and 
the elevation of his nature, could design all this unless for 
man's best ultimate good, however for a time he might 
shroud himself in mystery and hide the benevolence of his 
design, in part, at least, from those whom it does most 
concern ? Ere long the curtain will be raised and all this 
seeming mystery will be unraveled — God's ways to man 
abundantly vindicated, and he will shine forth in the 
splendor of his own perfections. 

Meanwhile, we have a clue to the mystery and a light 
in the darkness, from the knowledge that since the world 
began, God, by the mouth of all his holy prophets, has 
given us the blest assurance of the restitution of all things, 
and that Christ, having by his death and resurrection laid 
the foundation for this, has promised to come again and 
perfect his work. And no one need doubt, or suppose for 
a moment, from the holiness of his nature, his spotless 
purity, that any countenance will be given to sin in any 
form. Whatever may be the nature or degree of punish- 
ment to subdue rebellious man, it will not be punishment, 
or pain, or trial, for its own sake, or from any feeling of 
malevolence on the part of God, who loveth everything 
that he has made, and above all man, but to bring all 
men in the end into a state of conformity to his holy will 
and pleasure, and to fit them to dwell with him, and to 
show forth his praise in a world which he made expressly 



The Restitution of All Things. ■ 131 

for man's behoof and adapted to his nature. It would be 
idle, worse than idle— nay, an impeachment of the divine 
nature — to suppose anything short of this, and his word, 
rightly interpreted and cleared of some obscurity, will 
show this, and be found, we doubt not, in the end to 
conform to and sustain the declaration of God to his 
servant Moses, as he " stood with him there " on the 
mount, when, passing by, he showed him his glory, and 
proclaimed his name and nature after this wise : " The 
Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long suffering, 
and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for 
thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, 
and that will by no means clear the guilty ; visiting the 
iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the 
children's children, unto the third and to the fourth 
generation." * 

It is indeed remarkable how every part of God's holy 
word, from first to last, converges toward this one point — 
the restitution of all things, or what would seem to amount 
to the same thing, " the creation of new heavens and a new 
earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." f From the time 
of the first promise that " the seed of the woman should 
bruise the serpent's head," to that of Abraham that " in 
him shall all families of the earth be blessed," to the 
declaration of God to his servant Moses, " But as truly as 
I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the 
Lord" ; and so on through the rest of God's holy word, 
including " Samuel and those that follow after," even to 
the very close, the great theme of prophecy is never once 
lost sight of, but, like the bow of promise, spans the whole 
arch of heaven, a token of good for the whole family of 
mankind. What else but this, we ask, did the declaration 
of " the multitude of the heavenly host " announce, when 

* Exodus xxxiv., 6, 7. t Isaiah lxv. 17; II. Peter iii. 13. 



132 The Restitution of All Things. 

they said, " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth 
peace, good will toward men" ? * What is this but an echo 
from the silent wilderness of what God said to Moses 
when, in that remote age, he solemnly swore that "all the 
earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord" ? Tis not, 
then, heaven so much as it is this earth which is yet to 
witness the presence of Christ among men and the restoring 
of all things, perhaps by a gradual process, and putting the 
world back w r here it was, more than restored to its 
primeval beauty by the hands of him who made it, and 
who, sitting on his throne in the heavens, has said : 
"Behold, I make all things new." t 

* Luke i; 14. t Revelation xxi. 5. 



CHAPTER III. 



A Feast Unto All People. 



AMONG the fruits of the glorious coming days, when 
truth will be in the ascendancy, when "wisdom and 
knowledge shall be the stability of the times and strength 
of salvation," * will be an end of war, that scourge of the 
earth. And, strange to say — but none the less true — 
this blessing of the earth gathers, like every other good, 
around "the mountain of the Lord's house, established in 
the top of the mountains and exalted above the hills." f 
Indeed, the further we trace this subject, the more we 
delve into this mine, the greater reason will we have to 
dwell upon the words of the apostle Paul when speaking 
of the good the world would receive from the Lord's 
receiving his ancient people, the children of Israel, back 
to himself again, " forgiving their iniquity, and remember- 
ing their sin no more." He uses this strong language, which 
we here repeat, to impress it, if possible, more indelibly 

* Isaiah xxxiii. 6. t Isaiah ii. 2. 
133 



134 The Restitution of All Things. 

upon the mind of the reader : " Now, if the fall of them 
be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them 
the riches of the Gentiles, how much more their fullness ? 
For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the 
world, what shall the receiving of them be but life from 
the dead ? " * 

Among the incalculable blessings growing out of " his 
people" being " graffed into their own olive-tree" will be 
an end of war, with the devastation and cruelty and the 
general demoralization that are sure to accompany it, even 
when the cause is good. For it must be admitted that, in 
the present condition of society, it will not do to class all 
wars under the same category. War, among other evils that 
have afflicted our race, must rank among the unavoidable, 
and be traced back to its origin, the first transgression, the 
source of all evil, whether men will receive it or reject it. 
But better days are coining ; the restitution of all things is 
at hand, according to the word of prophecy from the begin- 
ning of the world. From the mountain of the Lord's 
house the waters will begin to flow forth, which, deepening 
as they flow, will also widen, like those Ezekiel saw 
issuing from under the threshold, and will water and 
refresh the whole earth. " For out of Zion shall go 
forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jeru- 
salem." f 

The hand of man is not competent for this, neither his 
wisdom nor his strength. All human efforts have thus far 
proved unavailing. During the whole period — so preg- 
nant with wars — from the first building of Rome till the 
fall of the empire, the gates of the temple of Janus had 
been closed but five times, remaining open during the long 
intervening period because of war. But now " The Prince of 
Peace" is on his throne, of the " increase of whose govern- 

* Romans xi., 12, 15. t Isaiah ii. 3. 



The Restitution of All Things. 135 

merit and peace there shall be no end ; upon the throne of 
David and upon his kingdom, to order it and to establish 
it with judgment and with justice, from henceforth even 
forever." * Of him we read : " And he shall judge among 
the nations, and shall rebuke many people ; and they shall 
beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into 
pruning-hooks ; nation shall not lift up sword against 
nation, neither shall they learn war any more." f 

This is part of the feast : " A feast of fat things, which 
the Lord of Hosts shall make unto ail people ; a feast of 
wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on 
the lees well refined"; J or, in the words of the Psalmist: 
" Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolations 
he hath made in the earth; he maketh wars to cease 
unto the end of the earth; ha breaketh the bow and 
cutteth the spear in sunder; he burnetii the chariot in 
the fire." § 

This is not, however, the whole of the feast which the 
Lord of Hosts will make unto all people in his holy 
mountain — the light, the joy, the glory still to proceed 
from Zion's hill. The gross darkness that still covers 
a large part of the habitable globe, as respects the 
knowledge of God; the idolatry that prevails; the 
heathenish ignorance of things divine, of spiritual worship 
(not speaking of the darkness that exists to a great extent 
in countries and among nations professedly religious), will 
be removed ; nay, more, destroyed, vanished, driven away 
to return no more. As we read : " And he will destroy in 
this mountain the face of the covering (vail) cast over all 
people, and the vail that is spread over all nations." || 
They will come into the full light and knowledge of the 
Gospel. This will be applicable to all nations and to all 

* Isaiah ix. 7. f Isaiah ii. 4. { Isaiah xxv. 6. § Psalm xlvi., 8, 9. 
|| Isaiah xxv. 7. 



136 The Restitution of All Things. 

people; not one more than another. The vail that has 
hidden God from their eyes will hide it no more. They 
will emerge, one and all, into " the glorious liberty of the 
sons of God." Every barrier will be broken down, every 
obstruction removed out of the way. It will not be said 
of one favored nation exclusively: " Know the Lord; for 
all shall know him"; and the words of Malachi, after 
waiting so many centuries for their absolute fulfillment, will 
be found literally true : " For from the rising of the sun 
even unto the going down of the same my name shall be 
great among the Gentiles, and in every place incense shall 
be offered unto my name, and a pure offering; for my 
name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of 
Hosts." * 

But the feast of fat things — a feast of wines on the 
lees — which the Lord of Hosts will make in this mountain, 
on Zion's hill, unto all people, is not over yet. There is a 
dark shadow on all things earthly; the brightest things 
below the sky must fade away, 

" And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, 
Await alike the inevitable hour : 
The path of glory leads but to the grave." 

We cannot decorate the tomb with flowers of fancy. 
There it is. With open mouth, as the mouth of a dark 
cavern, it stares us directly in the face. This is the lion in 
the way; this is the shadow on the wall, fitful, wavering, as 
the light glances or flashes on it, ready at any moment, by 
a passing cloud or some chance obstruction, suddenly to 
disappear, leaving no trace of its empty, vanishing form 
behind. But a voice from "the mountain of the Lord's 
house" f speaks to this effect: " He will swallow up death 
in victory, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from 

* Malachi i. 11. t Isaiah ii. 2. 



The Restitution of All Things. 137 

off all faces, and the rebuke of his people shall he take 
away from off all the earth ; for the Lord hath spoken it" 

These words, so fraught with hope for our race, so big 
with expectation, carrying us so far beyond the limits of 
past or present experience, looking at things in a mere 
human aspect, so unlikely to be realized in this low vale 
of tears and sorrow, assuredly belong to another and a 
future state or condition of things. No one — the most 
skeptical — can deny this, so that when this day of joy 
and brightness shall dawn upon us, as it assuredly will, 
and " death shall be swallowed up in victory, and tears 
wiped away from off all faces," there will be nothing left 
for blind unbelief to do but to hide its head and return to 
its own dark and dismal cavern of emptiness and nothing- 
ness. It will never dare to show itself under the broad 
sunlight of heaven any more. Its day is past, its deadly 
power gone, to return no more to blind men, and draw 
them away from God, and make them the children of the 
darkness of this world. 

Among those things, those unspeakable blessings which 
Jesus Christ came from heaven to earth, — as it were flying 
on the wings of the wind, — to impart to our world, so long 
under the dominion of the king of terrors, is the destruc- 
tion of death. As we read in Hosea : " I will ransom 
them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them 
from death : O death, I will be thy plagues ; O grave, I 
will be thy destruction; repentance shall be hid from 
mine eyes." * The victory will be complete. The death 
struggle and " the fear of death keeping us in bondage all 
our lives " will be at an end. 

But the manner in which this victory will be effected 
surpasses all thought — neither more nor less than the 
submission to death by Christ Jesus the Lord himself. 

* Hosea xiii. 14. 



138 The Restitution of All Things. 

Among the many inscrutable things which relate to " the 
purpose and grace " of God to save rebellious man, this is 
one. Death can only be destroyed by death. But for 
this purpose the Son of Man, who was none other than 
God manifested in the flesh, must descend into the heart 
of the earth, grapple with the monster in his own dark 
domain (have we not traces of this struggle in heathen 
mythology ?), and, having obtained the victory, ascend 
again to the realms of light. Inscrutable as on the face 
of it this may appear, it is as true as true can be. But in 
what a new light does this make the love of Christ to man 
appear! It is not enough to die upon the cross as an 
open malefactor, but " as Jonah was three days and three 
nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of Man" (most 
significant emblem!) "be three days and three nights in 
the heart of the earth." * The reference to this in God's 
word is as follows, and it is as plain and clear as it is 
incontestable : " Forasmuch, then, as the children are 
partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took 
part of the same, that through death he might destroy him 
that had the power of death, — that is, the devil, — and 
deliver them who through fear of death were all their life- 
time subject to bondage." f How close is this alliance 
between Christ and man ! It was for the children's sake, 
because they were partakers of flesh and blood, that he 
assumed our nature. So near Jesus Christ comes to us, 
bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh ; but it was " God in 
Christ " that went down into the tomb, that wrestled with 
" the strong man armed," and did what none but God 
could do, "abolish death" and put "life and immortality" 
in its place. % 

We have among us now, to those who believe the 
Gospel, naught but the semblance of death. The dread 

* Matthew xii. 40. t Hebrews ii., 14, 15. } II. Timothy i. 10. 



The Restitutio?i of All Things. 139 

monster has been stripped in good part of his terrors. 
It is no longer a question of the wisest of the wise, of a 
Plato "to be or not to be"; 'the stamp of immortality is 
put on every human soul, and " beauty immortal awakes 
from the tomb." But for our inheritance, as our portion 
of the spoils of the tomb, the victory of Christ over death 
and the grave will be complete. The very shadow of 
death will disappear from the face of the earth ; " death 
will be swallowed up in victory." 

What boundless praise will be due to our Lord Jesus 
Christ as we wander over the plains of life, free, disencum- 
bered, no longer haunted by the fear of death, the dread 
shadow following you every step you take, and the joy, 
the freedom heightened by the contrast ; for the memory 
will retain the somber recollection of the dark past, and 
the heart of man, sweetened by love, will rejoice in the 
glorious change and the rapture unspeakable. What a 
joy, then, to live on this sweet earth, the soul purified from 
every stain, peace on earth and good-will among men 
everywhere prevailing, and heaven itself come down in 
effect to this earth, agreeably to that portion of our Lord's 
prayer rehearsed by us from infancy: "Thy kingdom come, 
thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven" 

And all this we owe, and every other good, to the 
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. O glad morn, 
that saw the Lord arise ! May we not say, in the glowing 
language of the prophecy of Isaiah, " Awake and sing, ye 
that dwell in dust; for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, 
and the earth shall cast out the dead"?* It is not too 
much to imagine — we do not, at least, wander far astray 
— when we venture to say with what joy we may revisit 
scenes here on this renewed earth (renewed but not 
radically changed), endeared to us by associations con- 

* Isaiah xxvi. 19. 



140 The Restitution of All Things. 

nected with God and his kingdom and life for evermore. 
Tears of holy joy may yet spring from our eyes at the 
remembrance and sight of scenes long lost to our view, 
but now returned to us as mementos of God's care 
and love in the years that are gone — years of the right 
hand of the Most High in our behalf. Yes, indeed, it will 
be well to recall the past and retrace the way the Lord 
hath led us, and connect together, link by link, step by 
step, the whole scene of life through this devious wild, as 
Moses did at the close of the forty years' sojourn in the 
wilderness; and where can this be done so well as on this 
earth and amid scenes we wandered among in life's early 
morning ? Will not our humanity cleave to us, in its softer 
and better form, through every stage of being, as long 
as endless ages roll ? Certainly it will. This human 
nature, so dear to us, with its love and its tenderness 
thrilling us through and through, is ours, and always will 
be ours. We will never change it for any other. We 
were made for the earth; this is our congenial soil, our 
native air; and, raised from the dust, quickened anew by 
the breath that gave us life and being first, how instinct- 
ively will we turn to it as an infant to its mother's breast ! 
So the wanderer on the world's wide stage, after long 
years of absence, turns with tender yearning to the home 
and scenes of his childhood, when life was new, and not a 
speck, not the shadow of a cloud, dimmed the fair azure 
of his future sky. 

All this comes of the resurrection of Christ from the 
dead. Our happy and blessed and glorious future hangs 
on this as on a golden thread. Our blessed Lord rose 
from the dead with the same body in appearance, and, 
strictly, in reality the same, though changed and made a 
more glorious body, still without decomposition, as was 



The Restitution of All Things. 141 

the case both with Moses and Elijah, as we learn 
from their actual appearance in their glorified bodies 
on the Mount of Transfiguration, as they talked with 
Jesus of his decease that he should accomplish in 
Jerusalem. 

This, then, " the swallowing up death in victory," is the 
finale of the feast God will make unto all people in his 
holy mountain. "■ The last enemy that shall be destroyed 
is death." * This presupposes that we have now a changed 
world. " The face of the covering cast over all people, 
and the vail that is spread over all nations, is destroyed"; 
in other words, " the earth is filled with the knowledge of 
the Lord as the waters cover the sea," and the declaration 
that the Lord Almighty made to Moses in the wilderness, 
notwithstanding the repeated rebellions of his people in 
the face of all his marvelous works, has been fulfilled : to 
wit, " But as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled 
with the glory of the Lord." As the outcome of the 
whole : " Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, 
neither shall they learn war any more." 

This is the feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the 
lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well 
refined, which the Lord of Hosts will make unto all 
people; and when this is the case, — when "all the earth 
shall be filled with the glory of the Lord," and " the Lord 
is in his holy temple," f and " all shall know him, from the 
least of them unto the greatest of them," — what more is left 
to be desired ? We have, as the fruit of the passion and 
death of Christ, first of all, " Glory to God in the 
highest," and then " Peace on earth, good-will toward 
men." Have we not, also, in this heaven on earth, ample 
proof of the truth of what " God hath spoken by the 
mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began," — 

* I. Corinthians xv. 26. t Habakkuk ii. 20. 



142 The Restitiitio?i of All Things. 

what has in every age constituted the great theme of 
prophecy, "the restitution of all things"? 

As regards the millennium, as it appears on the face of 
it to be but an incident in God's great plan, and does not 
close the whole scene of things, and yet is extremely 
difficult to detach from the more comprehensive view 
which includes " the destruction of death," we leave it 
to solve itself when God's own time shall come to clear up 
the mystery that surrounds it. The grand outline that the 
word gives us of the redemption of the world, and in the 
end filling the earth with the glory of the Lord, involves 
no mystery, produces no obscurity, and vindicates Divine 
Providence in all his ways — the most hidden and dark — 
in causing all things, even sin and misery, to work together 
for the ultimate and eternal good of all the creatures he 
has made and the promotion of his own honor and glory 
in the sight of all intelligent beings, both men and angels. 



VI. 



THE BOOR OF REVELATION, 



CHAPTER I. 



Si?/. 



IT is because of the very inadequate conception we 
have of sin, even after we have carefully revolved it 
over in our minds and seen to some extent its dire effects, 
that we are ready to take exception to those righteous 
judgments which are sent upon us in consequence of sin 
and transgression, and to call God to an account for the 
harshness of his dealings (as if he were not accessible to 
pity) with the children of men. In the clear light of God's 
most holy law we must look at sin to determine somewhat 
concerning its deadly nature; how it aims its poisoned 
shafts at all that is good and true; how it defaces God's 
image in man ; darkens his mind, stains his soul, pollutes 
his imagination, and by regular descending steps brings 
him to a condition lower, viler than the beasts that 
perish. It is scarcely possible to conceive to what a 
depth of degradation — so much below mere animal 
instinct — man may be brought by the unbridled indul- 

7 145 



146 The Book of Revelation. 

gence of vicious appetites and unholy desires and intem- 
perate passions. This is but one, and in a certain sense 
an inferior aspect of sin. Whatever direction it takes, 
whatever form it may assume, it grows by whatever it 
feeds upon. " From whence come wars and fightings among 
you," says St. James ; " come they not hence, even of 
your lusts that war in your members ? " * Take the dark 
catalogue of woes that have been since the world began, 
and you can trace them all to one prolific source, sin and 
transgression — the first violation of the holy, just and 
good law of God. 

The most striking exhibition that we have of the evil 
and the good following in the wake of nations, according 
as they obey or disobey the commandments of God, is to 
be found in the enumeration of the blessings and curses 
pronounced by Moses upon his people Israel, according 
as they adhered to the good, or "forsook God, which 
made them, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salva- 
tion." f What of good was there not promised them, both 
from above and below, both of heaven and of the earth, 
from the upper and nether springs, provided " the Lord 
alone did lead them, and there was no strange god 
among them." J Of the calamities and miseries that 
should attend them and their hapless children, the inno- 
cent suffering with the guilty, fearful is the narration j and 
if any people could have been deterred from wrong-doing 
by the terrible consequences that would ensue, both to 
themselves and the government under which they lived, 
it would have been this people, before whom God, 
by his servant Moses, set "life and death, blessing 
and cursing," as before no other people or nation of the 
earth. § 

* James iv. 1. t Deuteronomy xxxii. 15. % Deuteronomy xxxii. 12. 
§ Deuteronomy xxviii. 1-68. 



The Book of Revelatio7i. 147 

At the same time we must remember that this nation, 
chosen of God, designed to be a nation of kings and 
priests, the object of God's peculiar care, whom he 
" found in a desert land and in the waste, howling wilder- 
ness, whom he led about, instructed and kept as the apple 
of his eye," * were set up on high as an example to all 
the nations of the earth. Here was a pure theocracy, 
established and ordained of God. There has been no 
nation, no government like it, under the especial superin- 
tendence of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. 
Who is there among men — where can the man be found, 
the declaimer, the vain boaster — who can say of the long 
train of evils denounced against this chosen people for the 
space of four thousand years, that they have not drank the 
cup to its bitterest dregs ? All that humanity could bear 
they have borne, and there is no one so bold, so rash, who 
can deny it. This is proof positive of the truth of God's 
word. It is a standing proof, a living testimony, seen, 
read and known of all men. 

And yet is their whole history a memento of God's 
unfailing punishment of sin and iniquity. The records of 
other nations once great and prosperous tell the same 
sad, melancholy story. But, in fact, punishment for 
sin is also, in part, the history of heaven as well as of the 
earth. This is too deep a mystery for us to attempt to 
explore or to explain, unless we adopt the simple solution 
that, in the wisdom and goodness of God, all intelligent 
beings under the rule of Almighty God must undergo 
some necessary test or trial essential to their future well- 
being as well as their present, and as absolutely essential 
to the perfection of their nature and their full enjoyment 
and permanent felicity for all time to come — for that 
endless existence for which we were all created. Man 

•'■' Deuteronomy xxxii. 10. 



148 The Book of Revelation, 

was placed under this law of his being, and why not 
angels, seeing that as to his moral qualities and intellect- 
uality he was originally made but " a little lower than the 
angels"? At all events, there was sin and rebellion in 
heaven itself. Many of "the first-born sons of light " rose 
up against God, his throne, dominion and power (and 
there are men daring enough — blasphemers, "clouds they 
are without water, foaming out their own shame" — to do 
this now), " which kept not their first estate, but left their 
own habitation and are reserved in everlasting chains 
under darkness unto the judgment of the great day."* 

Need we wonder, after all this, after all the vials of 
wrath that God has poured out both on angels and men, 
that in rectifying all that is wrong and subduing all things 
unto himself, putting down all authority and power, that 
this "great Babylon" — our guilty, God-defying world — 
"should be utterly burned with fire" ? f It is not for us to 
attempt to describe the tremendous conflagration. The 
day that cometh will show this; but this we know, that 
when this last great judgment shall be over, whatever 
changes in the elements may have been wrought by the 
fierceness of the fire, "all these things having been dis- 
solved," there shall come forth from the smoke and the 
burning, according to the promise of God, spoken by all 
the holy prophets since the world began, "new heavens 
and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." % 

* Jude 6. t Revelation xviii. 8. % II. Peter iii. 13. 



CHAPTER II. 



The Power of God as Displayed in the Judgments which, 
in the Future as in the Past, he will send upon the 
" Inha biters of the Earth ''''for their Iniquity. 



THIS work proceeds on the ground that this world 
will never be restored to a holy and happy state; 
that the restitution of all things — this great theme of 
prophecy, of which " God hath spoken by the mouth of 
all his holy prophets since the world began" — will never 
receive its accomplishment save by the personal interven- 
tion of Jesus Christ. The second coming of Christ, to 
"judge the world with righteousness and the people with 
his truth," depends upon this. Of his second coming 
there can be no doubt ; this is as true and as certain as 
that he exists. His second coming is predicated on his 
first, and who is there that doubts this ? Meanwhile, we 
are expressly told, as we have shown and demonstrated 
from God's own word, that " the heavens must receive 
him " until that appointed period predetermined in the 

i 49 



150 The Book of Revelation. 

divine mind, " the times of restitution of all things." 
With this in view, the patriarch David, foreseeing this, and 
knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that 
from his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up 
Christ, that is, from the dead, to sit on his throne, spoke 
of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in 
hell, neither his flesh did see corruption. To the same 
purport and in confirmation of the above, together with 
the testimony of all the holy prophets, the greater and the 
less, we have these words from the prophecy of Jeremiah, 
so plain, so direct, that it is not easy to see how they can 
be misunderstood or misapplied : " Behold, the days 
come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a 
righteous Branch, and a king shall reign and prosper, and 
shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In his 
days Judah shall be saved and Israel shall dwell safely ; 
and this is his name whereby he shall be called, The 
Lord our Righteousness." * 

We have gone over this ground again purposely, for 
what can show more clearly, or what more absolute terms 
can be used, than those employed by the Holy Spirit to 
establish the great truth that the personal presence of 
Christ on our earth — or, as it may be expressed, the power 
of God as manifested in the old time before us when he 
drove out the Canaanites from the promised land — is 
necessarily essential to the restitution of all things, "to 
Jilting the earth" according to the oath and word of God, 
"with the glory of the Lord" ? 

Will preaching the Gospel, as the sole instrumentality, 
however powerful or effective it may be, allowing it to be 
"in demonstration of the spirit and of power," bring about 
in its hallowed train the desired and divinely promised 
result? Have we any guarantee in God's holy word 

* Jeremiah xxiii., 5, 6. 






The Book of Revelation. 151 

that it will be so ? Has this at any time, under any 
circumstances, in any place, wiped out the last trace of 
sin, and for any length of time kept all evil, of every kind, 
far away? Take tjie preaching of our blessed Lord 
himself, accompanied as it was by mighty works, innu- 
merable almost as the drops of the morning; did his 
words, falling from one who "spake as never man 
spake," find a lodgment in every heart ? Did they melt, 
subdue, refine rough human nature, and cast all minds 
into the mold of Christ ? Take the apostles, endued 
with "divine gifts of the Holy Ghost," having received 
"power" directly from the throne of God, and which came 
in so remarkable a manner that the sound which attended 
it was compared to "a rushing, mighty wind," and mani- 
fested itself by tongues of fire sitting or abiding on the 
heads of all present, and they were thus prepared, as never 
a company of men and women were prepared before, to 
disseminate, to spread through all the earth abroad, " the 
faith of Jesus," the glories of his dear and honored name. 
" They were all filled with the Holy Ghost." The gift of 
tongues was common to them all, — a most remarkable 
exhibition of the power of God ; while to the apostles was 
given the power to work miracles, to heal the sick, to cure 
the lame, to raise the dead. Would it not appear as if all 
the world would now turn at once to God ? And at first, 
certainly, the word did swiftly run ; but ere long it began 
to decline, and by the time it became, under Constantine, 
the established religion of the Roman empire, what resem- 
blance did it bear to that of the Apostolic age ? and from 
that day to this it has never returned to its first aud 
earliest love. From present appearances the prospect of a 
perfect fruition of blessedness on this earth, — "the glory 
of the Lord filling the earth," — is as remote as at any 



152 The Book of Revelation. 

former period since the time of the apostles. Remember 
it is said, " They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy 
mountain ; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of 
the Lord as the waters cover the sea." * 

In the years that are passed, the many and the long 
years from the times of the preaching of the apostles, 
through all the intervening centuries, countless multitudes 
have been gathered home to God; but in every age the 
great mass of mankind have stood aloof from God, his 
word and ways. And if we may draw our conclusions 
from our Saviour's own words, as it was in the days of 
Noah, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be. 
" For as in the days that were before the flood they were 
eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until 
the day that Noah entered into the ark, and knew not 
until the flood came and took them all away; so shall 
also the coming of the Son of Man be." t The picture 
of to-day, as you see it in the city, amid its multi- 
tudinous noises and rushing crowds and eager haste for all 
that " the vain pomp and glory of the world " has to 
bestow, and in the field, is an exact counterpart of what it 
was in the days of Noah, and as it will be at the coming 
of the Son of Man. Hence the solemn and impressive 
exhortation of our Lord Christ : " Watch, therefore ; for 
ye know not what hour your Lord doth come."! 

We cannot very well get around this. It is the utter- 
ance, clear and distinct, calmly spoken, as Jesus and his 
disciples "sat," retired from the multitude, that busy 
throng that followed him everywhere, haunting his steps 
and hardly giving him a moment's rest, " upon the Mount 
of Olives." We are forced, therefore, by the very nature 
of the case, to fix our eyes " upon the hills whence cometh 
our help," to look forward to the second coming of our 

* Isaiah xi. 9. t Matthew xxiv., 37, 38, 39. % Matthew xxiv. 42. 



The Book of Revelation. 153 

Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and his reign on the earth, 
to adjust matters, to put down oppression, to rebuke 
effectually the war spirit, and " to beat down Satan under 
our feet." 

The power — that same mysterious power which "con- 
tended with the devil and prevailed against him when 
he disputed with Michael, the archangel, about the body 
of Moses," * a spectacle unseen of men, a conflict fought 
out in "aerial regions " — is to be exerted anew here on this 
earth, ere the restoring of all things and placing the world 
back "in a holy and happy state," thus realizing as a 
supreme felicity what Hesiod and other heathen poets 
sang in time long past, — among the number Virgil, whose 
strain on this subject partakes of the inspiration of holy 
scripture. Why start at the presence of Christ on this 
earth, sitting on the throne of David, to finish what he began 
on earth to do amid circumstances of humiliation, suffering, 
sorrow and death ? Is the one any more remarkable or 
surprising than the other ? Is it not less so ? May we 
not be too much wedded to our own conceits, instead of 
submitting to the word as it reads ? Do we not, to some 
extent at least, need the illumination of the Holy Spirit ? 
Is it too late in the day to sit at the feet of Jesus and learn 
of Him who was " meek and lowly of heart " ? 

One would think, if there was any one place more than 
another in the wide universe where Christ Jesus the Lord 
would visibly manifest himself and "take to hiinself his 
great power and reign, 1 ' t it would be on this earth. He 
who was derisively called King of the Jews, and had " set 
up over his head his accusation written, This is Jesus, 
the King of the Jews," \ and of whom the chief 
priests, Annas and Caiaphas, with the scribes and elders, 
mocking, said : " If he be the King of Israel, let him now 

* Jude 9. t Revelation xi. 17. J Matthew xxvii. 37. 

7* 



i *4 The Book of Revelation. 

come down from the cross and we will believe him," — * 
where should he vindicate himself, where, we ask, substan- 
tiate his claim to the throne of David, and prove beyond 
all controversy his resurrection from the dead for this very 
purpose, save on the spot where " he hath poured out his 
soul unto death, and he was numbered with the trans- 
gressors, and he bare the sin of many, and made inter- 
cession for the transgressors " ? f Surely there is in this 
nothing so very wonderful, so much out of the way, so past 
all comprehension, so vain, so ridiculous, as to be set 
aside arrogantly and contemptuously as a thing of naught. 
Oh, no ! holy Saviour ! Redeemer of the world ! Where 
thou didst wear "a crown of thorns," platted by men's 
hands, thou wilt wear a kingly crown, as Lord and mon- 
arch of the whole earth. And this w^ord will go forth to 
the very ends of the earth, issuing from the throne of God 
and the Lamb : " Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye 
perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a 
little." % 

We have, as it would appear, some glimpses of the 
mode of divine procedure and the end thereof — the 
judgment of mankind, dividing the sheep from the goats, 
separating the tares from the wheat, among the living of 
that generation when " the Son of Man shall come and 
shall sit upon the throne of his glory," § in the following 
passage from St. Jude, the most ancient of all writings on 
this subject, preserved and handed down to us, in the 
especial providence of Almighty God, for our admoni- 
tion upon whom the ends of the world have fallen: "And 
Enoch also, the seventh from Adam," — so far back are we 
carried, — "prophesied of these" (described above as "trees 
whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked 

* Matthew xxvii. 42. t Isaiah liii. 12. t Psalm ii. 12. § Matthew xxv. 31. 



The Book of Revelation. 155 

up by the roots; raging waves of the sea, foaming out 
their own shame ; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the 
blackness of darkness forever"), " saying, Behold, the Lord 
cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judg- 
ment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among 
them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly 
committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly 
sinners have spoken against him." * 

In that extraordinary prayer of Habakkuk for the 
revival of God's work throughout the earth, which, 
according to the Psalmist, contemplates the time when 
" mercy and truth are met together, righteousness and 
peace have kissed each other," when " truth shall spring 
out of the earth, and righteousness shall look down from 
heaven," t it will be seen with what majesty and power 
" the Lord makes his displeasure known, riding upon 
horses and in chariots of salvation, going forth for the 
salvation of his people, even for salvation with his 
anointed; wounding the head out of the house of the 
wicked by discovering the foundation unto the neck."! 

Certainly the language used is more or less obscure, but 
it is not difficult to see that the indignation of the Lord 
is aroused " to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their 
iniquity." § The prophet is led to say : " Was the Lord 
displeased against the rivers ? was thy wrath against the 
sea, that thou didst ride upon thine horses and thy chariots 
of salvation ? Thy bow was made quite naked, according 
to the oaths of the tribes, even thy word. Thou didst 
cleave the earth with rivers. Thou didst march through th$ 
land in indignation; thou didst thresh the heathen in 
anger." || 

* Jude 12, 13, 14, 15. f Psalm lxxxv., 10, n. % Habakkuk iii., 8, 13. 
§ Isaiah xxvi. 21. || Habakkuk iii., 8, 9, 12. 



156 The Book of Revelation. 

Surely the power of God is shown in this display cf his 
anger against "the nation and kingdom that will not serve 
him";* and we may well join in the prayer of the 
prophet : " In the midst of the years make known, in 
wrath remember mercy." f Nothing can exceed the 
sublimity of the language employed to describe the 
manner and the instrumentality by which God will work 
out the deliverance cf the w r orid from the power and 
effects of sin and Satan, and in doing this allusion is made 
to the manner in which God came to the deliverance of 
his people Israel from the house of bondage. Of the 
world's great coming deliverance Habakkuk thus speaks : 
" God came from Teman, and the Holy One from Mount 
Paran. His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was 
full of his praise. And his brightness was as the light ; he 
had horns coming out of his hands; and there was the 
hiding of his power. Before him went the pestilence, and 
burning coals went forth at his feet. He stood and 
measured the earth; he beheld, and drove asunder the 
nations ; and the everlasting mountains were scattered, 
the perpetual hills did bow : his ways are everlasting. I 
saw the tents of Cushan (Ethiopia) in affliction; and the 
curtains of the land of Midian did tremble. The mount- 
ains saw thee and they trembled : the overflowing of the 
water passed by : the deep uttered his voice and lifted up 
his hands on high. The sun and moon stood still in their 
habitation ; at the light of thine arrows they went, and at 
the shining of thy glittering spear." \ 

These words, as it appears to us, with all their majesty 
and greatness, are for the most part simply a display of 
the mighty power of God, but that power exerted, mainly, 
in this instance, in " driving asunder the nations," not only 
Cushan or Ethiopia and the land of Midian, marching 

* Isaiah lx. 12. t Habakkuk iii. 2. \ Habakkuk iii., 3-7, 10, n. 






The Book of Revelation. 157 

through the land in indignation, threshing the heathen in 
anger, and so opening and preparing the way for the 
propitious hour when, according to the language of the 
prophecy of Isaiah, "The glory , of the Lord shall be 
revealed, and all flesh shall see it together : for the month 
of the Lord hath spoke ji it." * 

In speaking of the power of " the great and dreadful 
God," to use the language of Daniel in his wonderful 
prayer for the restoration of Jerusalem and the return of 
his people from their captivity in Chaldea, that power on 
which the restitution of all things depends, and which is 
to be brought about by the coming and personal interven- 
tion of our Lord Christ, while sitting on the throne of 
David, one can hardly fail to take notice of what occurs 
at the opening of the sixth seal, and the strong resem- 
blance that exists between it and our Saviour's description 
of his second coming in power and great glory to "judge 
the world in righteousness, and the people with his truth." 
Of the immediate effect of this great, solemn and most 
awful event, we have a description in Christ's own words : 
"And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, 
and in the stars ; and upon the earth distress of nations, 
with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men's 
hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those 
things which are coming on the earth; for the powers of 
heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son 
of Man coming in a cloud, with power and great glory. 
And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, 
and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh." f 

It is not, as you will perceive, all accomplished at the 
time of the coming of the Son of Man; on the contrary, 
there is great consternation, men's hearts failing them for 
fear, and for looking after those things which are coming 

* Isaiah xl. 5. \ Luke xxi., 25-28. 



158 The Book of Revelation. 

on the earth. This is "but the commencement of a great 
and radical change in the condition of things, " the 
deliverance of the whole creation," which " until now has 
groaned and travailed in pain from the bondage of corrup- 
tion under which, from the beginning, it has been laid by 
sin and transgression." * The coming, then, of the Son 
of Man a second time to our earth, instead of closing the 
present scene of things, is the hour of hope and fond 
expectation to those who have been long waiting and 
looking for him, like it was with Simeon and Anna in the 
temple, when at his first advent Jesus was presented in 
the temple, in compliance with the requirement of the 
Jewish ritual. It is our Lord who says of his coming, and 
the signs and wonders which shall attend it : " When these 
things begin to come to pass, then look up and lift up your 
heads, for your redemption draweth nigh." 

We pass now to contemplate the amazing and terrible 
scene which opens on our view when " the Lion of the 
tribe of Judah, the Root of David," opens the sixth seal. 
" Lo, there was a great earthquake ; and the sun became 
black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood, 
and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig- 
tree casteth her untimely figs when she is shaken of a 
mighty wind. And the heaven departed as a scroll when 
it is rolled together, and every mountain and island were 
moved out of their places." f 

Now, note what follows as an accompaniment and 
explanation of that part of our Saviour's description of 
" the great and terrible day of the Lord," where he speaks 
of "the distress of nations, with perplexity," and also 
" men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after 
those things which are coming on the earth." We now 
continue the description of this day of terror and of wrath : 

* Romans viii., 21, 22. t Revelation vi., 12-14. 



The Book of Revelation. 159 

"And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and 
the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, 
and every bondman, and every free man, hid. themselves in 
the dens and in the rocks of the mountains, and said to 
the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the 
face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath 
of the Lamb ; for the great day of his wrath is come, and 
who shall be able to stand ? " * 

This, as in the preceding description of the coming of 
the Son of Man, as given by our Lord himself, is but the 
beginning of those judgments which are prefigured by "a 
fan" in the hand of him who "weighs the mountains in 
scales, and the hills in a balance," by which he will 
" thoroughly purge his floor and gather his wheat into the 
garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable 
fire." f The day of the Lord of Hosts is not one day, but 
many days ; we know not how long a period it may take, 
nor the exact process by which he will " thoroughly purge 
his floor" and "execute judgment and justice in the 
earth," until " the knowledge of the glory of the Lord 
shall fill the earth, as the waters cover the sea." J 

While, upon the opening of the sixth seal, amid the 
most alarming portents, we read that " the great day of his 
wrath is come" this is immediately followed by a long 
series of events, mostly judgments, increasing in number 
and intensity, until, indeed, the mighty Lord has " thor- 
oughly purged his floor," and " the mystery of God is 
finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets" § 

The first tiring done, after the great shock occasioned 
by "the appearing of the great God and our Saviour 
Jesus Christ," the first link in the chain of quickly 
succeeding events, all closely connected together and 

* Revelation vi., 15, 16, 17. t Matthew iii. 12. % Habakkuk ii. 14. 
5 Revelation x. 7. 



160 The Book of Revelation. 

having ultimately but one end and aim in view — the 
triumph of Christ over sin and death and the kingdoms of 
this world, is " the sealing with the seal of the living God 
an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes 
of the children of Israel." * This would seem to conform 
to what was said under the head of " the conversion of the 
Jews identical with that of the second coming of Christ." 
We do not say, in an absolute sense, that it is so ; but it 
looks that way. There is a resemblance of the one to the 
other ; and this is strengthened by the great fact, so fully 
established in holy scripture, that the Jews having 
acknowledged Jesus to be their Messiah, after their long 
rejection of him, their influence upon the world will be of 
such a character — so arousing, so convincing, breaking 
down the barrier of unbelief in innumerable minds — that 
St. Paul compares it to "life from the dead," after this 
wise : " For if the casting away of them was the recon- 
ciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but 
life from the dead ? " 

The sealing having been accomplished (evidently a great 
result, though we may not fully comprehend all that it 
implies, yet, from the joy it diffuses in heaven, the holy 
rapture it inspires, it is clearly one step, and that a highly 
important one, toward the grand consummation never 
once in this book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ wholly 
lost sight of), here we may pause, for now the scene 
changes; darkness, amid lurid light, overspreads the sky, 
and " the seven angels which stood before God " appear 
upon the scene, "and to them were given seven trum- 
pets." All things forebode the judgments to follow, 
reminding us of those that were sent upon the land of 
Egypt, growing constantly more and more intense by their 

* Revel.uion vii., 2, 4. 



The Book of Revelation. 161 

severity, until at last the obstinate hardness of Egypt's 
stern ruler gave -fray, and the deliverance of Israel was 
effected, amid the lamentations of all the people of the land 
for the loss of what was dearest to their hearts, the death 
of the first-born in every house throughout the whole land 
of Egypt. 

So, now, in view of a greater deliverance, — the putting 
down all rule and all authority that opposeth itself to 
Christ Jesus the Lord, — the seven angels with the seven 
trumpets each in his turn "prepare themselves to sound." 
But before the first angel sounds — a pause here ensuing, 
described as " silence in heaven about the space of half an 
hour" — "another angel came and stood at the altar, 
having a golden censer." Incense with prayer having 
been first offered up, as if in behalf of those who still 
withstood God (does not this indicate the long-suffering 
mercy of God and the intercession of Christ ?), the angel 
takes the censer, fills it with fire of the altar, and casts it 
upon the earth" At the same time, as premonitory of 
what is so soon to follow, enveloping the earth in darkness 
and causing great tribulations, "there were voices, and 
thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake." * 

It is not for us to trace at length, in full and complete 
order, the successive judgments as they came upon the 
earth. Is it not the same Jehovah who, when Israel 
rebelled, punished his people with blasting and with 
mildew, with plague, famine and the sword ? Did not the 
sword devour them ? the plague decimate them ? and 
famine bring them to a long, lingering, miserable death ? 
What atrocities, what barbarous cruelty, in the straitness 
of the siege, did slow, lingering famine give rise to — 
killing what is the hardest of all things to kill, the maternal 

Revelation viii. 5. 



1 62 The Book of Revelation. 

instinct, the love of the mother for the helpless babe lying 
on her bosom, and drawing its life from thence ? And 
shall the world forever go free in its impiety toward God — 
and now, especially, when it has almost wholly cast off 
the fear of God, intrenched itself in this last age against 
God and his Christ as never before, and fulminating 
blasphemies against the Lord of heaven and earth ? 

As "the first angel sounded" this, the beginning of 
God's controversy with those who continue, in despite of 
all forewarnings, to rebel against him, like Israel of old, 
though against greater light and greater manifested love, — 
and " hail and fire mingled with blood were cast upon the 
earth, and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all 
green grass was burnt up." * " The second angel sounded, 
and the third part of the sea became blood, and the third 
part of the creatures that were in the sea died, and the 
third part of the ships were destroyed. The third angel 
sounded, and the third part of the rivers and of the fount- 
ains of waters became wormwood, and many men died 
of the waters, because they were made bitter. The fourth 
angel sounded and the third part of the sun was smitten, 
and of the moon, and of the stars, so that the day 
shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise." f 

At this point of the revelation of the righteous judg- 
ments of Almighty God a new feature in the darkening 
scene is brought out, and John heard "an angel flying 
through the midst of heaven, saying, with a loud voice, 
Woe, woe, woe to the inhabiters of the earth, by reason 
of the voices of the trumpet of the three angels which are 
yet to sound." Among the plagues of Egypt, one of the 

* Revelation viii. 7. 

t Revelation viii. 8-12. This might remind one somewhat of the "Dark Day" 
that on May 19, 1780, spread over New England, but chiefly Massachusetts. 
There is a resemblance, but that is all. 



The Book of Revelation. 163 

means of deliverance for the children of Israel from their 
hard bondage was the plague of endless swarms of 
locusts; so now, when the fifth angel sounded, an innu- 
merable army of locusts arose out of the smoke of the 
bottomless pit, darkening the earth, "the sun and the 
air," sent, not as of old to devour every green thing, but 
to torment men, not to kill them; the anguish of the 
infliction to be of such a nature as to make life unendura- 
ble: "And in those days shall men seek death, and shall 
not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee 
from them." * 

This is the first of three woes, sent upon the inhabiters 
of the earth " by reason of the other voices of the trumpet 
of the three angels." "One woe is past, and, behold, 
there come two woes more hereafter." f 

When the sixth angel sounded and the second woe came, 
it is not the first-born in every house throughout the whole 
land of Egypt that dies, but the destruction of human life 
is immense ; " the third part of men are killed," by such 
means as God in his all-wise providence may see fit to 
employ. As to the remnant, " the rest of the men which 
were not killed by these plagues," such is the hardening, 
blinding nature of sin when it has seated itself so deeply 
(we might almost say, so ineradicably in the human heart, 
only this would disparage the power of God), that those 
who were spared "repented not of the works of their 
hands, of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their 
fornication, nor of their thefts." % 

It would seem as if at this stage of his righteous judg- 
ments the Lord God Almighty in a measure restrains his 
hand, for we read that John the revelator is directed to 
" seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered " — 

* Revelation ix. 6. t Revelation ix. 12. } Revelation ix., 20, 21. 



164 The Book of Revelation. 

doubtless more and heavier judgments — ■" and write them 
not," but in the place thereof, with an unspeakable 
solemnity, to announce " That there should be time 
no longer; but in the days of the voice of the seventh 
angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God 
should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the 
prophets." * 

After all, in some sense, "the mystery of God" is an 
open secret, for it hath been made known to all the holy 
prophets since the beginning of the world. It is to be a 
mystery no longer, for when the seventh angel shall begin 
to sound, the mystery of God shall be finished. Great 
obscurity rests upon what afterward transpires, until we 
read: "The second woe is past, and, behold, the third 
woe cometh quickly." f Under the third and last woe 
come " the seven last plagues, for in them is filled up the 
wrath of God." % 

The culmination of the whole, the unraveling of the 
mystery of God, the stepping out of darkness into light, 
simplifying all God's ways and dealings with the children 
of men — showing the nature and design of all his righteous 
judgments, from the drowning of the world by the deluge 
to its destruction by fire — is neither more nor less than 
the exaltation of Jesus Christ, placing the world at his 
feet, and crowning him " Lord of All." Hence we 
read as follows: "And the seventh angel sounded; and 
there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms 
of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and 
of his Christ; and he shall reign forever and ever."§ 

So, also, we read that when the seventh angel, having 
the last of the seven golden vials of the wrath of God, 
" poured out his vial into the air, there came a great voice 

* Revelation x., 4, 6, 7. t Revelation xi. 14. \ Revelation xv. 1. 
§ Revelation xi. 15. 



The Book of Revelation. 165 

out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is 
done." * And when the whole was accomplished, the 
last vial of the wrath of God having been poured out 
upon the inhabiters of the earth, Satan also adjudged, 
and all opposing authority put down, the power of God 
and his majesty having been so fully displayed, amid 
marvelous portents and signs and wonders and judg- 
ments, the solemn and awful scene is closed as follows: 
" And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, 
and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of 
mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia : for the Lord God 
omnipotent reigneth." t 

x Revelation xvi. 17. t Revelation xix. 6. 



CHAPTER III. 



The Final Conflagration as a Preparation for the Renewed 
Earth, wherein dwelleth Righteousness. 



IT is well, when the waves are calm, to look out upon 
the mighty ocean, but when the sea lifts up itself on 
high and the winds roar and you are in the miclst of the 
tempest, the case is somewhat different, and we are ready 
to speak of the deceitful sea, and to apply to it harsh and 
unfriendly terms, rough and almost opprobrious speech. 
But the sea, now calm and at rest, now swelling into angry 
waves, does but obey the behest of him who " made it, 
and whose hands prepared the dry land." So it is well to 
speak of and contemplate the divine mercy ; but whether 
we shut our eyes to it or not, there is wrath as well as 
mercy. Sin and death are in our world. Deny it who 
can. It is indeed pleasing to dwell upon the time when, 
in the glowing language of Isaiah, full of the inspiration 
of the Holy Spirit, "the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, 
and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord 

1 66 



The Book of Revelation. 167 

hath spoken it" * But previous to this, and as a prepara- 
tion for it, even as the deluge was necessary to wash away 
from the face of the earth the accumulated filth and 
ungodliness of many ages of men wallowing irr the mire 
of sin and iniquity (look even now at the great cities of 
this age, nominally Christian), so also " the wrath of 
God," as we have seen from the prophecy of Enoch, the 
seventh from Adam, "is yet to be revealed from heaven 
against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who 
hold the truth in unrighteousness." f 

Not with greater clearness and distinctness does the 
holy apostle Peter remind us of God's promise from the 
beginning of the world to make " new heavens and a new 
earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness," \ than with equal 
explicitness he declares that, whereas by " the word of God 
the world that then was" — the antediluvian world — 
"being overflowed with water, perished," so, "by the same 
word, the heavens and the earth, which are now, are kept 
in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment 
and perdition of ungodly men." § 

Sin is at the bottom of it all. Ever since man, by 
transgression, fell (the Mosaic account, to be sure, is 
ridiculed as a fable), and sin entered into the world, and 
death by sin, as an overflowing scourge, judgments in 
every form — earthquake, famines, pestilence, the sword — 
have devoured the earth. History is little else but a 
catalogue of bloody wars, victories and defeats. Every 
age has repeated itself. Nations that were great once, 
where are they now ? Sin was the worm at the root of 
their greatness. If we take the word of God for our 
guide, what do we find but that Sodom and the cities of 
the plain were destroyed almost in a moment by fire from 
heaven, because of their sins? — their iniquities had reached 

* Isaiah xl. 5. t Romans i. 18. \ II. Peter iii. 13. § II. Peter iii., 5, 6, 7. 



1 68 Tht Book of Revelation. 

unto heaven. We know this to a certainty; for if ten 
righteous men could have been found, God in Christ 
would have saved the city. So, years afterward, the land 
of Canaan was so defiled by impurity, by the wickedness 
of its inhabitants, that the land could no longer bear 
them. It is sad to review such a record as this ; and the 
heart of man would utterly fail him if, as Socrates said of 
the impiety of his day, help were not to come from above. 
We refer to the above to show that, as the judgments of 
God have been abroad in the earth in the past, and above 
all the deluge sweeping away at one fell stroke all the 
inhabitants of the earth save eight persons, the members 
of a single family, we need not be so much surprised at 
what is to come to pass in the future. The destruction of 
the world by fire rests on the same basis, and is sustained 
by the same authority, as the destruction of the world by 
the deluge. The words of Peter, an apostle of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, and singularly honored by him, are, as we 
have already seen, as plain and direct in the one case as in 
the other. As to the deluge and its universality, the 
waters rising higher than the tops of the highest mountains, 
we have, in addition to the Mosaic record, the words of 
Jesus Christ. He recognizes as a plain matter of fact the 
deluge — let gainsay ers say what they may — as he does 
the history of Jonah and the whale, that wonderfully 
significant emblem of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from 
the dead. Of the universality of the deluge — the destruc- 
tion of all that was then living, being drowned by water — 
we have it expressly confirmed by Jesus Christ, who says 
of the flood that it " came and took them all away." * 

Of course, the question is now, as of old, " Where is the 
promise of his coming ? " Doubtless the same scoffing 
question was asked, and in the same spirit of absolute 

* Matthew xxiv. 39. 



The Book of Revelation. 169 

incredulity, in the Noachian age as now. Was there ever 
anything so preposterous ? The world that then was, so 
firmly established, that had resisted all encroachments of 
the sea for so many revolving centuries, the mountains 
peering into the heavens, rising far above the watery 
clouds, to be " overflowed with water," and " the world to 
perish," — was ever heard anything so supremely ridiculous ! 
Yet we have the authority of him who " was in the world, 
and the world was made by him" * that " in the days that 
were before the flood they were eating and drinking, 
marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah 
entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came 
and took them all away." f As vain are any words in 
opposition to the words of Christ Jesus our Lord, as for 
vain man, like another Xerxes, to attempt to beat back 
the advancing waves of the sea. 

Another spirit was found in Abraham, unlike that of the 
antediluvians, when the Lord our God appeared in 
person to him (has not the Lord, in one form or another, 
— etherealized, if you please, — often visited our earth 
before his incarnation ?) and announced the coming 
destruction, not by water, but by fire, of the cities of 
Sodom and Gomorrah, "and all the plain, and ail the 
inhabitants of the cities." \ Not but that they, also, in 
their turn, were forewarned. God allows none of us to go 
headlong to destruction without certain premonitory signs 
and warnings, though, in the heat of passion or the ardor 
of pursuit, we may not regard, or else purposely stifle 
them. So all the animal creation— birds of the air and 
beasts of the field, and, for aught we know, fish of the sea 
— are moved to seek refuge from the impending storm; 
the sea-bird to the rocks and o'erhanging cliffs, the beast 
to his lair, while all nature trembles ere the shock comes, 

* John i. 10. t Matthew xxiv., 38, 39. \ Genesis xix. 25. 

8 



170 The Book of Revelation. 

forerunner of the thunder, or the lightning, or the whelm- 
ing earthquake. The five cities of the plain, save one, 
Bela (that is Zoar), were not destroyed without warning — 
not one note of warning, but many, according to the 
pitifulness of God. Among the evidences to this effect is 
that of the presence in these parts, and at that time, of 
" Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the most high 
God." * A strange mystery surrounds this name, this 
king of righteousness, to whom Abraham, in virtue of his 
high office, paid tithes, and who blessed Abraham (then 
called Abram), saying, " Blessed be Abram of the most 
high God, possessor of heaven and earth."! From 
Salem's hill came a holy breathing, from such an high priest 
came words and an influence all divine, wafted over the 
vale of Siddim, which was then as the garden of the Lord, 
instead of the dark, heavily rolling, pestiferous sea, which 
has taken its place. From the king of righteousness, 
seated high on Salem's hill — hill of peace — came, we 
may be assured, from many a long day backward, many a 
warning, but without avail. The testimony of Abraham 
and of Lot must also be put in the scale, especially the 
daily example and preaching of righteous Lot, whose 
soul was vexed from day to day with their unlawful deeds, 
seeing and hearing them. % Day had hardly broken 
when, suddenly, ere they were aware, their overthrow came; 
the cities were turned into ashes, " making them an ensample 
to those that after shall live ungodly." § Unbelief did not 
make void the word of God. Sudden destruction, like 
that in our time of the city of Lisbon, a few seconds 
burying the whole in ruins, came upon all save three; the 
Dead Sea remaining as a memorial of God's displeasure 
"against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who 
hold the truth in righteousness." Beside the account in 

* Genesis xiv. 18. Genesis xiv 19. \ II. Peter ii. 8. § II. Peter ii. 6. 



The Book of Revelation. 171 

Genesis, the testimony of the lake Asphaltites and the 
declaration of Simon Peter, we have the words of Jesus 
Christ, in proof, actual proof, that " the Lord rained upon 
Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord 
out of heaven, and he overthrew those cities, and all the 
plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which 
grew upon the ground."* Of this same judgment and 
terrible overthrow our Lord thus speaks — and who will 
gainsay his word ? He is comparing the suddenness of 
his own second coming with the overthrow of Sodom, 
establishing both these events at one and the same time, 
and giving his word as authority for both, whoever may 
receive or reject them : " Likewise also as it was in the 
days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they 
sold, they planted, they builded; but the same day that 
Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from 
heaven, and destroyed them all." t 

With the same explicitness, sustained by the same 
authority, the same word of God, the holy apostle Peter 
declares that " the heavens and the earth, which are now, 
by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire 
against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly 
men." I Further, we are told, whatever scoffers may 
deridingly say to the contrary, whatever argument may be 
drawn, from the long continuance of the present state of 
things, of the future and eternal durability of our world 
(forgetting " that one day is with the Lord as a thousand 
years, and a thousand years as one day"), however far off, 
in the vanity of the imagination, semi-believers may 
suppose it to be, or whatever deductions from the actual 
reality may be made in our minds, yet we are most solemnly 
and positively assured that "the day of the Lord will 
come as a thief in the night, in the which the heavens 

* Genesis xix., 24, 25. t Luke xvii., 28, 29. % II. Peter iii. 7. 



172 The Book of Revelation. 

shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall 
melt with fervent heat, the earth, also, and the works that 
are therein shall be burned up." * 

We leave it to theorists to cavil, to explain away, to 
weaken the force of words, to misinterpret the plainest 
language, while we turn to the living word itself and place 
the same interpretation upon it as regards the destruction 
of the world as it now is by fire in the future, as we do as 
regards the deluge upon the record of what has already 
taken place, " that by the word of God the heavens were 
of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the 
water, whereby the world that then was, being overflowed 
with water, perished." f 

* II. Peter iii. 10. t II. Peter hi., 5, 6. 



VII. 



THE GROUND ON WHICH THE RESTITUTION OF ALL THINGS 
ACTUALLY RESTS. 



CHAPTER I. 



Love. 



IT would seem easy to write of this when the heart is 
surcharged with it. Divine love — what can compare 
with it ! Matchless attribute ! shining the brighter not by- 
diminishing or weakening the claims of justice, or giving a 
loose reign to licentiousness, but subordinating all to the 
glory of God and the good of man. We must go to the 
Book, and leave the wisdom of God, in reconciling the 
claims of love and justice as relates to man, to the forgive- 
ness of his offenses, where the Book leaves it — to God, 
the arbiter of man's destiny. What does this say of God's 
method of reconciling the seemingly conflicting claims of 
love, truth and justice ?. It says simply this : You must 
confide in the infinite wisdom that devised the plan to 
r save rebellious man. God is the contriver ; it is his plan. 
You cannot go back of this. These are the words, and 
they stop the mouths of all gainsay ers: "Who hath 
directed the spirit of the Lord, or, being his counsellor, 



175 



176 The Ground on which the 

hath taught him ? With whom took he counsel, and who 
instructed him and taught him in the path of judgment, 
and taught him knowledge, and showed to him the way 
of understanding ? " * 

Man's weak understanding, especially as to things 
pertaining to godliness, must not oppose itself to the 
wisdom of the infinite. God found the way, by assuming 
our nature and placing " the obedience of one " in contra- 
distinction to "one man's disobedience," to cause justice 
to sheathe her glittering sword, while a way was opened for 
love to achieve her brightest triumphs and largest con- 
quests without any impeachment of the divine justice, or 
giving any the least license to sin and iniquity. In this 
way the pillars of the divine government, like those of the 
universe, are upheld by the word of God, and love like 
the dove can fly abroad, seeking for the subsidence of the 
waters, until it returns "with an olive-leaf plucked off," 
token that the wrath or anger of God, as it is termed, has 
spent itself, and now waiteth to be gracious. 

Thus love, love divine, came among us, and took up its 
abode in the Christ-child. This was the child that was 
born, the son that was given. Heaven, with all that it 
contained, was in this form, the form of an infant, newly 
born, descended from the skies — mystery divine! God's 
plan, not man's. The world saved by weakness, not by 
strength; enriched by poverty ; enlightened, not by "vain 
philosophy," but by the wisdom of a babe, " the wisdom 
that is from above." Earthly strength and "the wisdom 
of the world " must succumb to God, that " no flesh may 
glory in his presence." All this is preparatory to what is 
to come. Love cannot spread its pinions and soar to the 
skies and back again to the earth until it partakes of the 
spirit of the babe in the manger. Was there no other way 

* Isai.ih xl., 13, 14. 



Restitution of All Things actually Rests. 177 

by which the pride of man could be brought low ? I fc 
would seem not. Otherwise, the wisdom of God would 
have contrived that way. The love of God, therefore, to 
answer the end for which it was designed, to bring down 
effectually the lofty look and the high pride of man, must 
subdue the heart; and this must find its source, not in the 
vanity of the human imagination, but in that spectacle for 
angels and men, the babe lying in a manger, born of the 
Virgin Mary, conceived by the Holy Ghost. Let the 
world have its laugh, the pride of intellect deride, — this 
is the spell that is to charm the world and to lay it low at 
the feet of Christ. The world conquered by love, van- 
quished by faith and perfected by humility. 

So, through the entire history of the God-man, love 
divine is carrying on its gracious work of humbling human 
pride and subjecting the will of man to the will of God, as 
his highest good and greatest excellence and chief joy, by 
the varying forms of his earthly life, from his birth to his 
death, from the cradle to the grave. Was ever anything 
so hard to subdue as the towering pride of man, — building 
his nest in the sky and saying, " Bring me down if you 
can"? "This is great Babylon that I have built " is the 
cry of every human soul. Not only in the lowliness of 
his birth does Jesus show his love to man, all the while 
aiming to bring him to his standard, that he may have 
" the mind which was also in Christ Jesus," but, also, by 
his submission to his parents, by his choice of poverty as 
his lot, by the selection of his disciples, by the doctrine he 
preached, by mingling promiscuously with all classes of 
men, by being called pre-eminently "the friend of 
publicans and sinners," by his love of Mary Magdalene 
in the house of Simon, and the reproof he gave him in 
the presence of all his guests for his want of hospitality — 

8* 



iy3 The Ground on which the 

of, indeed, common courtesy, — in all this does the Son of 
Man show the highest form of love ; teaching us, by his 
daily example, " to seek not high things, but condescend to 
men of low estate," and so conform ourselves in the great 
business of life to the pattern he has set us, to the 
example of Him who was meek and lowly in heart. 

So, when we come to the closing scenes of this 
anomalous life, — a life so opposed to all precedent, to the 
way of the world, — we see the same love teaching us the 
deepest humility, all lowliness of mind, so that, baptized 
into his death, we may rise to the life immortal together 
with him. Patient under ignominy, showing no resent- 
ment, submitting, with hardly a word, when he could have 
called legions of angels to his aid, to the death of the 
cross — was ever love like this! looking at it for the time 
in no other light than that of a lesson, of a just man 
dying calmly, even as Socrates was put to death by the 
malicious and unjust decree of his countrymen. 

But we do not stop here. Far from this. But who can 
portray the love that bared that breast to the pitiless 
storm, that bowed that head down to the dust, that 
crowned it with a crown of thorns, while bearing on that 
torn and bruised body the sin of the whole world ? Here 
example fails and all comparison ends. We simply adore. 
Love produces love. " We love him because he first 
loved us." Oh, unexampled love ! " Herein is love," saith 
the holy apostle John, " not that we loved God, but that 
he loved us, and sent his son to be the propitiation for our 
sins." * " And not for ours only," saith the same apostle, 
in another place, "but also for the sins of the whole 
world." t 

We have this love, this dying love, surpassing all love, 
aUuding to which, especially the manner of its exhibition, 

* I. John iv. 10. f I. John ii. 2. 



Restitution of All Things actually Rests. 179 

Jesus said: "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will 
draw all men unto me," * thus set forth by the apostle 
Paul in his epistle to the Romans : " For when we were 
yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the 
ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die ; 
yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare 
to die. But God commendeth his love toward us in that, 
while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." t 

This love divine of which we speak shows itself not only 
in its practical effect upon our character, the love of 
Christ sweetly drawing us to himself and constraining us 
with the bands of a man to imitate his example; to "walk 
as he also walked," but to ascribe the power or strength 
to do so to his death upon the cross — that mysterious 
source of strength divine which, while it humbles, elevates; 
while it weakens, imparts strength; while it kills, makes 
alive, and produces, as far as in us lies, — making due 
allowance for our weaknesses and infirmities, — a perfect 
copy of the spirit and life of Jesus. This is what divine 
love does for man; placing him under the cross and 
receiving his new and heavenly life from The Life and 
Light of the world. 

* John xii. 32. t Romans v., 6, 7, 8. 



CHAPTER II. 



The Love of God to Man, and its Effects upon his Present 
and Future Condition. 



MUST such love for the most part go for naught? 
We see, and have seen since the scene on Calvary, 
comparatively speaking, but little of its blessed effects. 
Even to-day, under the most favorable circumstances, how 
little of the spirit of Christ have we among us. There is 
zeal, activity, perhaps, to a certain extent, benevolence, in 
one form or another, but how little of that love — offspring 
of heaven, emanation of the Deity — which "beareth all 
things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all 
things." * Where are they who weep for others' woes — 
who, like the prophets of old, sigh, and mourn, and weep, 
because men keep not thy law, O God ? Where is to be 
found that holy fidelity, that sacred regard for truth, that 
glorying in the cross of Christ, which, under the old 
prophetic dispensation and during the apostolic age, was 

I. Corinthians xiii. 7. 

180 



The Restitution of All 1' kings. 181 

almost invariably followed by imprisonment, by scourging, 
by death ? How did Christ rebuke the Jews for their 
treatment of their prophets ? Who of them did they not 
stone to death ? And when one reads of their denuncia- 
tions of the sin of Israel and exposure of their horrible 
iniquities, how does their plain speaking compare with the 
latitudinarianism, say, of our times ? Surely the contrast 
is not very flattering. 

But go abroad into the world at large. We need not go 
out of our own time; we need not recur to the past. What 
is the picture of our own age ? Shall we unvail that 
black, that hideous monster of iniquity, " filled with all 
unrighteousness," as drawn by the holy apostle in the 
commencement of his epistle to the Romans, and then 
inquire, after exploring the secret vices and portraying the 
evil, not to say malignant passions and covetous desires 
of men in general, whether we, on the whole, are so very 
much better than they were in the time of the Caesars, 
under the emperors, or even in the Augustan age— that 
epoch of Roman civilization, refinement and literature ? * 
Abashed, may we not hide our faces in the dust and ask, 
is this the highest stage of Christian virtue in a civilized 
and Christian community ? 

If we go back to the early age of the church, to the 
time of the apostles, how soon we see signs of decline and 
decay in that vigorous piety, that strong faith, which 
marked the initiation of Christianity. St. John, the 
beloved disciple, had not disappeared from among us, the 
first century had not closed, when he had to write letters 
of sharp rebuke, but in that spirit of tender love for which 
he was so eminently distinguished, to the seven churches 
of Asia — so soon did they begin to decline from their first 
and earliest love, so strong is the tendency of the human 

* Romans i., 29-32. 



1 82 The Ground on which the 

heart, even after it has been purged from its sins, to go 
backward from God. Ere long the worst form of unbelief, 
that of Antichrist, began to insinuate itself into the 
doctrine of the apostles, to weaken " the faith of Jesus/' to 
sow seeds of discord, to " deny the Lord that bought 
them." What has the history of the church been, from 
that day to this, but ever-varying and innumerable ramifi- 
cations of the doctrine of Christ? — shading off now into 
this form, anon into that, circling around the central figure, 
gleaming with shadows, but avoiding in every case a clear 
and direct acknowledgment of the eternal deity of Jesus, 
" The Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the 
world." 

Has, then, our Lord Christ died in vain for our sins, and 
risen again to little or no purpose, and do they who believe 
in both his death and his resurrection from the dead believe 
in vain, without being justified before God? Far, far 
from this. This is the point : We do not attach efficacy 
enough to his death, to the precious blood shed upon 
the cross of Calvary. 

" Its streams tlie whole creation reach, 
So plenteous is the store ; 
Enough for all, enough for each — 
Enough for evermore." 

When we consider who it was that died, who paid the 
penalty for our sins — that it was the God-man, God in a 
human form, God taking on him our nature, rising from 
the dead for our justification : while on the one hand this 
view gives us some faint insight into the terrible nature of 
sin (God alone sees it in all its horrid deformity and 
sensualizing nature, poisoning the very fountain of purity 
itself, the heart of man), on the other hand it opens a 



Restitution of All Things actually Rests.. 183 

door so wide, it shows a love so deep, a remedy so sure 
and healing in its effects, that the worst of sinners here 
may find — if, indeed, any such term is applicable to one 
man more than another — "a Saviour merciful and kind, 
who will their sins forgive." 

Is it possible to attach too great a value to such a 
death ? to measure its breadth, its height, its depth ? Does 
God in reality make any distinction in sin — making sin 
in some less sinful than in others ? There is nothing of 
this in the holy Bible. All mankind, without distinction 
of name or race, are put irrespectively on the same level. 
"All have sinned and come short of the glory of God." 
All are alike under condemnation and in a sense exposed 
to the wrath of God; for, from his very nature, and 
because the pillars of his universal government could not 
stand the shock, but must fall crumbling to the ground, 
bringing with it the throne of God, God cannot look 
upon sin with the least allowance. It follows, therefore, 
that if Jesus died for one, he necessarily died for all. Not 
one of the human race but was included in the wide 
compass of his loving heart; for God is not partial, 
neither is there any respect of persons with God. Why 
should it not be so ? Is he not the Father of us all — the 
father of the spirits of all flesh ? Do we not live, move, 
and have our being in him ? From whence came the 
first living breath — the first breath, indeed ? To whom, to 
what does the mother turn, with a love stronger than 
death, dearer and sweeter than life itself, at the first faint 
breath of her first-born ? Does that love, planted by God 
himself, ever die ? And is God less than the human ? 
the Creator less than the creature, with no yearning love 
to his offspring ? 

"Are we not all his offspring?" 



184 The Ground on which the 

If you wish a picture of love, read the expression of it 
as depicted by Moses in God's care of his people Israel, 
while traversing the waste, howling wilderness. Was e'er 
such a picture drawn, and taken, too, from that fierce bird 
the eagle, in its care for its young ? Does the parent 
eagle love one of its young more than another ? " As an 
eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, 
spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them 
on her wings, so the Lord alone did lead him, and 
there was no strange god with him." * Who is it that 
hath put the maternal instinct so strong, so overpowering, 
in every creature that he hath made ? The eagle robbed 
of her young ones will fight as for life; the wild bear 
robbed of its whelps, who will face the savage onset ? will 
he not rush, slay, devour ? But God alone is pitiless. O 
God, most merciful and true, how has man in his blind- 
ness defaced thy image — thy lovely image ! Because 
necessity is upon thee to punish iniquity, to save man 
from himself, from being his own destroyer, from blotting 
out truth from the earth, God, and God alone, the giver 
of every good and perfect gift, "whose name and whose 
nature is love," he alone is more merciless, more ferocious 
than the wild beasts of the forest — more cruel even than 
man. May not God, who is infinitely holy and just, as 
well as wise and good, find a way to show his displeasure 
at sin and to punish the sinner, and at the same time to 
glorify his holy name, without proceeding to an extremity 
of punishment from which, if we think at all, wq shrink 
with inward horror, loathsomeness and disgust ? And has 
not such a way been found, by which all the divine 
attributes harmonize and " God can be just and yet justify 
the ungodly who believe in Jesus" ? 

And when we think of the nature of the sacrifice made 

* Deuteronomy xxxii., 11, 12. 



Restitution of All Things actually Rests. 18 







for sin, as has been said, and who it was, how far exalted 
above all principality and power, who laid down his life 
for man ("he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and 
as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not 
his mouth"*), does it follow that we can readily trace the 
full and complete effects of such a death, how far it may 
extend, or absolutely define the bounds beyond which the 
voice of free grace and redeeming love and mercy does 
not avail ? Even our Lord's own work was not com- 
pletely finished at the time of his death; neither is it 
finished yet. Life is but the vestibule of being. " Like 
sheep we are laid in the grave." But are we to conclude 
absolutely that at the close of this short and painful life, in 
the vast majority of cases — a thousand to one, — the light 
of hope is shut out forever, and everlasting darkness 
ensues? Would not this be — we speak it with the 
deepest reverence — almost a parody upon the death of 
Christ ? He died for all, yet nearly all are lost. He died 
for his enemies, yet he hath made them tenfold more the 
children of hell than they were before. How does this 
agree with the homage to be paid to Christ by all intelli- 
gent beings in the ages to come, who, shining in the light 
of love and washed in his most precious blood, shall 
crown him 'Lord of all? Do we not read that, at some in- 
definite period in the interminable future, " At the name 
of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven 
and things in earth and things under the earth ; and that 
every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, 
to the glory of God the Father" ? t 

* Isaiah liii. 7. 

t Philippians ii., 10, 11. Note. — In Isaiah this passage is connected with the 
salvation of all the ends of the earth. We quote as follows: "Look unto me and 
be ye saved, all the ends of the earth ; for I am God, and there is none else. I 
have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness and shall 
not return, that unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear." Isaiah 
xlv., 22, 23. Surely not by force, but voluntarily, with the heart's homage. 



1 86 The Restitution of All Things. 

Would we turn the grace of God, the love of Christ for 
our lost race, into a plea for lasciviousness ? Far from 
this. But we would carry his precious death and burial 
beyond the bounds of space and time. We would plead 
for the dead as well as for the living. We would not shut 
out hope. The remedial process shall it not proceed, 
while Christ Jesus the Lord is our mediator; while he 
sits on his mediatorial throne ; while he shows his wounds 
and says, Sinner, I suffered this for you ? May not 
punishment be so meted out according to the measure of 
our iniquity as that what did not avail here will avail 
there ? Indeed, according to God's word and solemn 
oath, as cited before, we are assured that sooner or later 
" every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear." 

Will this weaken the divine government ? Will it make 
sin less sinful ? Will it harden men in iniquity ? Will 
it make the punishment of sin more bearable ? On the 
contrary, it will bring about an entirely different result. 
Knowing the power of God, their eyes cleared of every 
film of passion, tasting of his goodness even while suffer- 
ing under his hand, lamenting their sins, conscious of 
their ill deserts, they will turn to the Lord with full 
purpose of heart, and forsaking all vain pleas and casting 
themselves on the divine mercy, they will join the band of 
the redeemed, will unite with them in saying, " Unto him 
that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own 
blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and 
his Father; to him be glory and dominion forever and 
ever. Amen." * 

* Revelation i., 5, 6. 



CHAPTER III. 



The Principle of Divine Forgiveness, as Shown in God^s 
Dealings with his Ancieiit People Israel. 



SURELY, if ever the principle of forgiveness laid down 
by our blessed Lord in reply to a question of Peter 
on this point, that we are to forgive a repenting brother 
not only seven times, but seventy times seven, — that is, 
indefinitely, — was practically carried out under every variety 
of provocation, it has been so in the case of God's dealings 
with his ancient people Israel. Leaving, however, the 
subject under discussion for a moment, we may remark 
that nothing shines with such luster, nothing moves and 
wins the heart so much, as our Saviour's love for such as 
are lost. He came not so much to call the righteous — 
those that are so in their own self-esteem — but sinners to 
repentance. It is the lost sheep that has strayed away in 
the wilderness, that, bleating, cannot find its way back 
again to the fold, that moves his pity — excites his com- 
passion. Instead of leaving it to perish and thus reap 

187 



1 88 The Ground on which the 

the fruit of its own folly, he seeks it out and never rests 
till he has restored it to the fold from whence it haplessly 
strayed. It is so beautifully said of him, in view of his 
tender love and pitying forbearance, that " the bruised 
reed he will not break, and the smoking flax he will not 
quench." Who was dearer to him than Mary Magdalene, 
" out of whom went seven devils " ? And who ever loved 
him so much ? It is the lost who are saved, who find a 
hiding-place in his bosom, under the shadow of his wing, 
in the hollow of his hand, who know how to love. Even 
in the case of the ten lepers whom he healed, nine of 
whom were Jews, while but one returned to give him 
thanks, and this one a Samaritan, the despised of the rest, 
he did not rail at them for their ingratitude, but gently 
chided them, saying, " But where are the nine ? " But 
when would we end if we should attempt to follow out 
and delineate in innumerable instances the love of Christ 
to the erring and the lost while he sojourned here among 
us, a man among men? O unexampled love, mercy 
divine! How it yearned over a perishing world! What tears 
were shed, what sorrows were felt! — and all for love of us. 
Did ingratitude steel his heart, and make him careless and 
indifferent for our good? It did but raise his pity and 
his love to a higher flame. His love was only the more 
intense as we hardened ourselves against it. It was a 
flame that many waters could not quench. 

The parable of the Prodigal Son, while it illustrates the 
forgiving love and pity of our God, shows at the same time 
the true spirit of penitency and that sense of unworthiness 
and lowering of our love of self and self-esteem which always 
accompanies the knowledge of our actual desert in the 
sight of God. He went away towering with pride and 
self-confidence, elate with the sense of freedom from all 



Restitutiofi of All Tilings actually Rests. 189 

restraint, moral and paternal; but in how different a guise 
does he return home ? Nothing can exceed the sense he 
has of his own demerit. Without one plea he casts 
himself at the feet of his grieved and justly offended father. 
This is his language : " Father, I have sinned against 
heaven and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be 
called thy son." * He had no longer any high thoughts 
of himself. He did not claim, neither did he expect to 
receive, as a son, what of right belonged to him before. 
He had forfeited all right and title to all the respect and 
all the privileges which inhered in his birthright. Utterly 
self-abandoned, he is ready to say in this moment of 
sorrow, of unspeakable grief, of profound humility of 
spirit, " Make me as one of thy hired servants." t 

Here we have, in the instances cited above, to some 
extent (for what plummet can reach the depth of the love 
of God to man ?), — so far, perhaps, as language can express 
it, — the true measure of the love of God to his ancient 
people Israel, throughout all their varied history; how 
ready he was ever to forgive them upon their sincere 
repentance, turning away from their idols, and receive 
them yet again and again to his beloved embrace. Hardly 
had a year of their sojourning in the wilderness elapsed, 
ere, owing to their unbelief, the darkness of their minds 
and the frequency of their rebellions, God was ready to cut 
them off as a people ; but at the intercession of his servant 
Moses he repented him of this. But what is most remarkable 
at this point, and bears directly upon the divine principle 
of forgiveness, as shown by God in his dealings with his 
people Israel, is that, amidst their repeated provocations 
and rebellions at this early period of their history (for thus 
saith the Lord, "All those men which have seen my glory, 
and my miracles, which I did in Egypt and in the wilder- 

* Luke xv. 21. t Luke xv. 19. 



190 The Ground on winch the 

ness, and have tempted me now these ten times, and have 
not hearkened to my voice" *), God declared, in a manner 
the most emphatic, " But as truly as I live, all the earth shall 
be filled with the glory of the Lord."f No matter how 
often, or to what an extent, or how high their offenses may 
grow, my purpose will be fulfilled — "All the earth shall 
be filled with the glory of the Lord." And, as we have 
fully shown, inasmuch as " Israel " — literal Israel, not, by a 
misnomer, the church — "shall blossom and bud, and fill 
the face of the world with fruit," \ so, in the time to come, 
however long and painful the process through which she 
will first be called to pass, being tried as by fire, Israel 
will find these words of the prophet Micah to be true: 
" Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, 
and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his 
heritage ? He retaineth not his anger forever, because he 
delighteth in mercy. He will turn again, he will have 
compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities, and 
thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. 
Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob, and the mercy to 
Abraham, which thou hast sworn unto our fathers from 
the days of old." § 

If we turn to the close of Moses's career, where he sums 
up the great evils that will befall his people for their not 
hearkening to the voice of the Lord, we read : "And the 
Lord shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end 
of the earth even unto the other, and among these nations 
shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot 
have rest ; but the Lord shall give thee there a trembling 
heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind; and thy 
life shall hang in doubt before thee, and thou shalt fear 
day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy 

* Numbers xiv. 22. t Numbers xiv. 21. \ Isaiah xxvii. 6. 

§ Micah vii., 18, 19, 20. 



Restitution of All Thi?igs actually Rests. 191 

life ; in the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were 
even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were 
morning ! for the fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt 
fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see." * 

Yet, in the very face of these terrible calamities, this 
dispersion over all the earth, the mercy of God toward 
his ancient people is not exhausted, but he loves them 
still, as he hath himself declared, " with an everlasting 
love." This is his word of promise to them, as sure 
to be fulfilled as his covenant with day and night. 
Having been driven by God among the nations, "their 
lives ever hanging in doubt before them," having among 
these nations, owing to what may be called, whether 
paradoxical or not, religious hatred, " a trembling heart, 
and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind," yet we read, 
from the source and fountain of love, these precious, 
encouraging and most consoling words : " If thou wilt 
return unto the Lord thy God, and shalt obey his voice 
according to all that he commands thee this day, thou and 
thy children, with all thine heart, and with all thy soul," 
then, saith the Lord, " If any of thine be driven out unto 
the outmost parts of heaven, from thence will the Lord 
thy God gather thee, and from hence will he fetch thee : 
and the Lord thy God will bring thee into the land which 
thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it ; and he will 
do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers. And 
the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the 
heart of thy seed, to love the Lord with all thine heart, 
and with all thy soul, that thou may est live." t 

It may be remembered that in another part of this 
work, while the sins of the people Israel would appear to 
have excluded them forever from God's favor, and they 
had for aye the covenant he had made with their-fathers, 

* Deuteronomy xxviii., 64-67. t Deuteronomy xxx., 1-6. 



192 The Ground on wJiich the 

yet ere long he relents, and promises " in the day of the 
Lord to bind up the breach of his people and heal the 
stroke of their wound." * We have given several 
instances of this kind, showing how God remembers " the 
oath which he sware to our father Abraham " (quoting the 
words of Zacharias at the circumcision of John the 
Baptist), " that he would grant unto us that we, being 
delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve him 
without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all 
the days of our life." t 

All this is abundantly corroborated by the apostle Paul 
(to which reference has been made before) in his celebrated 
chapter of the eleventh of Romans, where he stands up, 
as a gladiator in an arena, and boldly declares and argu- 
mentatively shows, as none but he could so conclusively 
and prophetically show, that after all that has come and 
gone, whether the people most concerned will receive it or 
not, that sooner or later, independently in some respect of 
man's will, but not against his will : " All Israel shall be 
saved ; as it is written, There shall come out of Zion the 
Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob; 
for this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away 
their sins." \ 

And shall God bestow such unspeakable mercy to his 
people of old, such long-suffering compassion, such forgiving 
love, after all that they have done, imbruing their hands in 
the blood of Christ, nailing him to the tree, and deal with 
unrelenting harshness and interminable severity with all the 
rest of mankind ? On the contrary, may we not rather 
infer from his relentings toward Israel that his bowels 
move with the tenderest compassion to us, and that there 

* Isaiah xxx. 26. t Luke i., 73, 74, 75. 

\ Romans xi., 26, 27; also, Isaiah lix. 20. 



Restitution of All Things actually Rests. 193 

is, in the suffering of death on the cross, consistently both 
with his justice, holiness and truth, a way provided, either 
in this life or the life to come, by which all men may be 
conformed to the death of Christ; for most assuredly, 
unless either in this world or the next, we are planted in 
the likeness of his death and so transformed by the renew- 
ing of our mind, we cannot expect to dwell with him in 
the life immortal, eternal and indivisible. "Without holi- 
ness no man can see the Lord " ; otherwise seeds of discord 
would be at once sown among the pure and the good, and 
ere long there would be a repetition of all the evil that 
Jesus Christ came into the world to destroy ; taking it up, 
through his death and resurrection, by the very roots, so 
that it should never more return to darken and desolate 
our fair and happy world. 



CHAPTER IV. 



The Ultimate Perfection and Felicity of all God's Creatures. 



WHEN we survey the world as it now is, and ever has 
been, and consider how much the larger proportion 
live (or at least seem to live) and die with little thought or 
knowledge of God, " being alienated from the life of God 
through the ignorance that is in them," while others live 
and die in a manner far more brutish than the beasts that 
perish, — some monsters of iniquity and cruelty, — the 
question arises how can such dwell with the pure and the 
good — how can such be made conformable to the death 
of Christ ? Where is the alembic that can bring out the 
pure life of God in such as these ? Suppose, instead of 
attempting to answer such a question as this, taking the 
infallible word of God for our guide, we ask what can 
Isaiah mean when he says of the whole nation of the 
Jews, irrespective of age, sex or condition, " Thy people 
shall be all righteous ; they shall inherit the land forever, 

194 



The Restitution of All Things. 195 

the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I 
may be glorified." * 

In a subsequent passage, where the message of the 
gospel is spoken of, and its especial adaptation to the 
meek and broken-hearted described, we read that God 
will "appoint, unto them that mourn in Zion, beauty for 
ashes, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; 
that they might be called," in a most eminent sense, 
" trees of righteousness, the filci7iting of the Lord, that he 
might be glorified." t 

While it is freely admitted that this language, under the 
gospel scheme, applies to all people, admitting of no 
distinction on the part of those who comply with its 
requirements, yet primarily, before all others, it refers to 
God's ancient people. This is made most evident. For 
in the very next passage we read of those who are called 
" trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord" those who 
are truly constituted righteous in the sight of the Lord, 
that " they shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up 
the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste 
cities, the desolations of many generations." % And lest 
there should be any mistake on this point, and the 
Gentiles put in the place of the Jews, as we follow the 
whole scope of the chapter the distinction between the 
one and the other is thus marked : " And their seed " 
(whose seed ?) " shall be known among the Gentiles, and 
their offspring among the people ; all that see them shall 
acknowledge them, that they are the seed which the Lord 
hath blessed." § 

Who are they that are to be thus blessed of the Lord 
and so acknowledged of all that see them ? What is their 
present status as a people, — say of the two millions that 
we are told are scattered throughout the vast empire of 

* Isaiah lx. 21. t Isaiah lxi. 3. % Isaiah lxi. 4. § Isaiah lxi. 9. 



196 The Ground on which the 

Russia ? Is it not almost as difficult to answer the one 
question as the other ? Look at the Holy City, as it is 
now in the hands of the Turks — down-trodden, hardly a 
remnant of its former glory and sanctity left. And yet we 
read to this effect : " Awake, awake ; put on thy strength, 
O Zion ; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the 
holy city; for henceforth there shall no more come into 
thee the uncircumcised and the unclean." * 

When and how is this to come to pass, we may ask, 
without resolving it into that power which calls " things 
that are not as though they were"? Is anything too hard 
for thee to do, O God ? or will ever anything be done, so 
far as the perfection of our immortal nature or our future 
felicity is concerned, inconsistently with or in direct 
opposition to the divine perfections — those inconceivably 
glorious attributes that belong essentially to God, all wise 
and eternal ? 

Then look also at what hath been said in a former part 
of this work concerning the part the Jews — so long 
opposed to Christ, never more so than now — are to take 
in bringing the whole world to bow the suppliant knee to 
that Christ whom they, when he came to " his own," 
disavowed and put to death. May we not ask when and 
how this is to be done ? Must we not resolve it into the 
purpose of God ? And when God says unqualifiedly he 
" will have all men to be saved and to come unto the 
knowledge of the truth; for there is one God, and one 
mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 
who gave hiniself a ransom for all, to be a testiniony in 
due time"t — when God says this, it certainly behooves 
us to stop and think, ere we take the ground that in his 
inner consciousness St. Paul meant this to be taken in a 
sense the opposite of what he says. The only qualification 

* Is.-iah Hi. 1. t I. Timothy ii. , 4-6. 



Restitution of All Things actually Rests. 197 

in the sentence is the expression "in due lime" and this, 
as in other passages of scripture, may be rendered "ac- 
cording to the time," or " in the fullness of time." * That 
is, " in due time," or " according to the time," or " in the 
fullness of time," it will be testified, or be a testimony, that 
" the man Christ Jesus gave himself a ransom for all" 
May we not wait and see, even as the world waited four 
thousand years, until " the fullness of the time was come, 
when God sent forth his son, made of a woman, made 
under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, 
that we might receive the adoption of sons"? t 

In this connection, which involves so much, and which, 
on its face, at least, seems to go counter to the opinion of 
so many on a subject so intimately connected with the 
everlasting destiny of man, there is one passage — the 
central one of the three — which to us appears to bear 
directly, or at least indirectly on the subject, and sustains 
the general declaration that Christ Jesus the Lord did, in 
no equivocal sense, " give himself a ransom for all, to be 
testified in due time" It is as follows: While we are told 
on the one hand that God " will have all men to be saved 
and to come to the knowledge of the truth," this is the 
reason which is assigned (and what a reason! — how 
weighty !) : " For there is one God, and one mediator 
between God and men, The Man Christ Jesus." % 

The main stress of the sentence is upon the last clause, 
the man Christ Jesus. It is in this near relation as 
brother, friend (even as Abraham is called " the friend of 
God"), that "the man Christ Jesus" appears in our 
behalf and is our mediator with God. For the moment 
it would seem as if the two natures were distinct, and 
perhaps in a certain sense they may be so regarded, though 
it is truly " one God." We must regard him for the time 

* Romans v. 6; Galatians iv. 4. t Galatians iv., 4, 5. J I. Timothy ii. 5. 



198 The Ground on which the 

simply as the man Christ Jesus, who took on him our 
nature, who allied himself to our flesh and blood. It is in 
this light we must view him as part of ourselves, " made 
of a woman, made under the law." How close does this 
bring him to us ! His heart beats in unison with ours. 
He is one of us. O, Holy Jesus ! Friend and Redeemer 
of mankind ! " Mediator between God and men " ! 

What may we not expect from one who is " touched 
with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points 
tempted like as we are, yet without sin " ? * 

" Touched with a sympathy within, 
He knows our feeble frame, — 
He knows what sore temptations mean, 
For he hath felt the same." 

It is a man — our brother — who stands between us and 
God — the man who died on Calvary, who spent his last 
breath for his enemies — who is the mediator between 
God and man ; and yet, mystery all divine ! he is " over 
all, God blessed forever." We can hardly help thinking 
(if we take this sufficiently into consideration it will give 
force to the words) that " the man Christ Jesus gave 
himself for us all, to be testified in due time" 

Is it wrong to think that Jesus, having the same nature 
as ours, " his heart being made of tenderness, his bowels 
melting with love," should have a fellow-feeling with us ? 
or are there those who, forgetting that " he took not 
on him the nature of angels, but he took on him the 
seed of Abraham "f (remember, he was of Jewish extrac- 
tion), vainly imagine that the yearning love which he felt 
for his people and all mankind was laid aside as a cast-off 
garment as he ascended to heaven, and that he clothed 
himself anew with the thunder and the smoke and the 

* Hebrews iv. 15. t Hebrews ii. 16 



Restitutio7i of All Things actually Rests. 199 

lightning of Sinai. Oh, no. The sharp-edged, fierce, 
flashing lightning — harbinger of wrath — was quenched in 
Jesus's blood, as shed upon the cross ; the dread thunder 
of Sinai ceased to roll with his expiring breath. The law 
had done its work, and expended all its force, only as the 
nature and penalty of sin shone through or was reflected 
from the cross. In that heaven which "must receive him 
until the restitution of all things," it is "the man Christ 
Jesus who is the mediator between God and men." 

We hardly think it will be brought against us as an ad 
captandum argumentum, in view of the human relation 
which our blessed Lord, as " mediator between God and 
men," sustains to us, if we refer to a remarkable instance 
where human affection toward a wicked, rebellious, dis- 
obedient son triumphed over every other feeling, and was 
ready to bury in oblivion even the memory of all the painful 
past ingratitude of a much-loved, dearly cherished son. 
We speak, of course, of the case of Absalom, of his 
rebellion and of his death, and the grief of David, though 
that son had sought to deprive his father not only of his 
kingdom but his life, when the sad tidings were brought to 
him of his son's untimely death. His own death would 
have been as nothing to him could he but have saved his 
poor, misguided son — his love in this respect, to some 
extent, foreshadowing the love of Christ to our guilty, 
rebellious world. 

And does this give no warrant, no ground of hope for 
the future of the greater part of the human family ? Is 
David's love and pity for a bad son to outweigh that of 
Christ for "a wicked and adulterous generation"? It is 
the humanity of Christ that pleads for us. Were it not 
for this the case would be different. Consider for a 
moment who it was " that took upon him the form of a 



200 The Ground on which the 

servant, and was made in the likeness of men." * It was 
none other than God himself, " the great and dreadful 
God," who, " being found in fashion as a man, humbled 
himself and became obedient unto death, even the death 
of the cross," " that he by the grace of God might taste 
death for every man" f With this agree the prophets : 
" Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the 
earth; for I am God, and beside me there is no 
Saviour."| 

Yes; in the face of every anathema there is good 
ground of hope for every son and daughter of Adam "iu 
due time" for "as by one man's disobedience many were 
made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be 
made righteous." § And can it be that the obedience of 
Christ, by which he " fulfilled all righteousness," satisfied 
every demand of a broken law, enabling God to be just 
and yet the justifier of every one that believeth in Jesus, 
may not be set over against the disobedience of the first 
Adam ? This would be to take ground in direct opposi- 
tion to holy scripture, and would almost throw contempt 
upon, or at least cast into the shade, the death of Christ. 

What kind of a restitution of all things is that, and how 
vainly spoken of by the mouth of all the holy prophets, 
and which has been ever the joy of their heart through all 
the different dispensations as age after age passed away, 
if the far greater part of mankind are to be left " in outer 
darkness, where is weeping and wailing and gnashing of 
teeth," destitute of the slightest gleam of hope throughout 
the countless ages of eternity ? And this inevitable, 
unalterable doom is to be pronounced by " the man 
Christ Jesus, who is the mediator between God and men ; 
and who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in 
due time." 

* Philippians ii. 7. t Hebrews ii. 9. \ Isaiah xlv. 22. § Romans v. 19. 



Restitution of All Things actually Rests. 201 

How does this agree with the song of the angels at the 
birth of Christ ? with the declaration of peace on earth 
and good- will toward men ? or with the prophetic words, 
the holy song of the virgin mother, " From henceforth all 
generations shall call me blessed " ? Maledictions, rather, 
for a doom engendering the deepest hostility, the ever- 
increasing enmity of countless myriads of the human race 
(for they cannot remain forever in one and the same state) 
against " our Lord and his Christ." Shall we have peace 
on earth and universal good-will among men — -no jar, no 
enmity — while all heaven is in a state of whirl and 
ferment from contumacious, immortal spirits, battling with 
God and his angels, as the Devil and his angels have 
been contending with him from the beginning? This 
would necessarily be the case from the hellish nature 
which they possess; which, of course, from its very 
essence must be "enmity against God." In this view our 
blessed Lord might well and truly say, " I came not to 
bring peace, but a sword." For whatever the enmity and 
discord throughout the universe may have been in the past, 
it would be as nothing to what it will be in the future — 
and that an endless future. O eternity ! eternity ! Is this 
all thou hast to show as the result of that most wonderful 
of all spectacles, the manifestation of God in the flesh, 
the love of God to man ? We think not. We look for 
better things — for the entire destruction of that natural 
enmity of the human heart to God, and opposition to 
goodness, and aversion to truth, through the cross, at a 
time and in a way which infinite wisdom and undying love 
shall see best both for the creature man and the Creator. 

We are well aware that we are looking at this subject, 
so much at variance with the views of many, through the 
human nature of Christ Jesus the Lord. Through what 

9* 



2 02 The Ground on which the 

other medium should we view it ? This is the very 
mystery of godliness. What is God apart from Christ ? — 
a Being remote, without parts, whom " no man hath seen 
or can see"; existing from all eternity; wholly underived; 
unfathomable in his infinite essence; soaring beyond all 
thought ; unknown ; inconceivable ; dwelling in light 
unapproachable by man; author of all things — of worlds 
as of a blade of grass ; source of life, of the tiniest insect 
as of the highest archangel; builder of all worlds, maker 
of all men; who set the sun, that wondrous luminary, in 
the heavens ; who made the moon and the stars to give 
light in the night; whose eye sees everything at once, 
from the greatest to the smallest. Whose providence is 
over everything, in and through everything; who sees all 
our thoughts and knows all we do ; this is God afar off, 
and at an infinite, unreachable distance out of Christ. But 
" God in Christ." Oh, how near to man ! He is on " his 
right hand, that he shall not be moved." God in Christ. 
The child of yesterday — not of an inconceivable duration, 
of an eternity fathomless— but a child of yesterday, born 
of the Virgin Mary. Now we can feel God — touch God 
— "God in Christ reconciling the world unto himself" 
(awe, wonder, admiration is turned into love), "not 
imputing their trespasses unto them." # 

He who stooped so low to save offending man, 
through whatever untried scenes in the illimitable future 
man may be called to pass — whatever may be essential in 
the way of punishment for his better and more enduring 
being, to humble and prove him, as was the case with the 
Israelites in the wilderness — of one thing we may rest 
fully assured, that the man of Calvary "shall see the 
travail of his soul and shall be satisfied ; by his knowledge 
shall my righteous servant justify many ; for he shall bear 

* II. Corinthians v. 19. 



Restitution of All Things actually Rests. 203 

their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a portion 
with the great, and Hte shall divide the spoil with the 
strong ; because he hath poured out his soul unto death ; 
and he was numbered with the transgressors ; and he bare 
the sin of many, and made intercession for the trans- 
gressors." * 

* Isaiah liii., n, 12. 



CHAPTER V. 



Some of the Happy Results Growing out of the Great TTieme 
of all Prophecy, the Restitution of All Things. 



IS it not a little astonishing that a theme so grand, so 
calculated to inspire hope and fill with joy the human 
bosom, and that is built on so sure a foundation as the 
Word of God from beginning to end, should have excited, 
on the whole, so little attention, and amid topics kindred 
to it, growing out of it, and dependent upon it, should 
itself be almost wholly overlooked by the greater part of 
the Christian world ? Even those who have contended the 
most earnestly for "the faith of Jesus," and have illustrated 
the faith they professed by their lives, brilliant examples 
of all that is " lovely and of good report," have somehow 
been more or less blind or oblivious to a subject which, 
blended with the promise of a Saviour, on which it is built, 
occupies the supremest place in the holy scripture. Surely 
this was not so with either patriarchs, prophets or apostles ; 
but when these left the stage it would almost seem as if 
the scene was darkened; and men have groped more or 

204 



The Restitution of All Things. 205 

less in darkness ever since. It is not easy to account for 
this; for what inspired holy prophets in every age, and 
kept up their courage in the darkest moments and when 
faith in God was at the lowest ebb, why should it not also 
inspire us with hope and fill us with a holy joy for the 
glory which is to come at the revelation of Jesus Christ ? 

Take a single circumstance, the dispersion of the dark- 
ness of time. That which tinged with light the gloomy 
path through which all these elders, patriarchs, prophets 
and apostles, who " obtained a good report through 
faith,"* in their far-off day steadfastly walked, why should 
it not also cheer us, who in these latter days walk also 
" by faith and not by sight" ? Was their path lonely, with 
but few travelers ? — so, comparatively speaking, is the 
path of faith to-day. Did all those who received the 
promises, and were persuaded of them and embraced them, 
confess that they were strangers and pilgrims on the 
earth ? and were they not sustained by the promise of 
" new heavens and a new earth," by the golden promise 
" of the restitution of all things " ? And as for those, few 
or many, who nowadays in our time may be following in 
their footsteps, should they not also declare plainly to all 
around that they, too, " seek a country " ? that their view 
is not bounded by time ? that they also have received the 
promises, been persuaded of their truth and reality, and 
embraced them, and that their whole lives are influenced 
and governed by the great and glorious truth that Jesus, 
the Restorer, the Deliverer, "shall see his seed and be 
satisfied " — that " the knowledge of the glory of the Lord 
shall fill the earth as the waters cover the sea"?| 

Was not this also, we may ask, "the joy 'W the chief, 
all-inspiring joy — of " the author and finisher of our 
faith"? Was it not for " the glory which should follow," § 

* Hebrews xi. 39. \ Habakkuk ii. 14. § I. Peter i. 15. 



206 The Ground on which the 

"for the joy that was set before him, our Lord endured 
the cross, despising the shame, enduring the contradiction 
of sinners against himself, and is set down at the right 
hand of the throne of God " ? * This joy to come, this glory 
that should follow " the sufferings of Christ," is it not an 
expansive principle ? It is boundless as the universe. It 
has a heart as large as the heart of God. It embraces all 
mankind. It overlooks none, not the lowest, the meanest 
of all God's creatures. It does not confine itself to a 
select few. One human being is as dear to God as 
another. Anything short of this would be a reproach 
upon God, and is expressly opposed to a thousand most 
gracious declarations emanating from the infinite mind. 
There is no need of quoting them; they will recur to 
every mind, and are drawn from the infinite love of God 
to man, as shown in his assumption of man's nature, and 
constituting himself " mediator between God and men." 

When we look at things in this light, through the 
medium of God's most holy word, through the strangest 
of all spectacles, the cross of Calvary, while justice is 
satisfied, the law of God under which man was placed in 
the beginning vindicated and God himself honored, we 
begin to breathe a new life ; the dark curtain which 
enshrouded time is rent, and through the opening we 
see that, however dark and severe may be the dispensa- 
tions of divine providence, yet when the period of suffering 
and punishment, whether for a longer or a shorter term, is 
forever past, behind an almost impenetrable cloud we will 
find God "hides a smiling face." 

" His purposes will ripen fast, 
Unfolding every hour; 
The bud may have a bitter taste, 
But sweet will be the flower." 
* Hebrews xii., 2, 3. 



Restitution of All Things actually Rests. 207 

Above all, the final restitution of all things will vindicate 
Christ ; will set forth his vicarious death in its true light ; 
will cover the faces of all who have spoken lightly of his 
holy name with shame and confusion, bring them peni- 
tently to his feet, and make forever sacred and true the 
oath which God sware, saying, " I have sworn by myself, 
the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness and 
shall not return, that unto me every knee shall bow, 
every tongue shall swear." * So also we read, as a 
necessary result growing out of the humiliation of Jesus 
Christ, that " God hath highly exalted him, and given 
him a name which is above every name; that at the 
name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in 
heaven and things in earth, and things under the 
earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus 
Christ is Lord (Jehovah), to the glory of God the 
Father."! 

This hardly seems to accord with that deep hostility to 
God and his great and glorious name which almost a 
world in arms against the great Supreme, the mighty ruler 
of the universe, would seem to imply. According to 
God's holy word, all creation is searched ; not only things 
in heaven, things in earth, but things under the earth, to 
find one dissentient voice; but there is no answering 
reply. And what is most emphatic and should be taken 
closely to heart, this worship, this holy reverence, — like that 
of the Magi who brought their gifts from the far East, and, 
kneeling, laid them at the feet of " the holy child Jesus," 
— this universal adoration is rendered to " Christ Jesus the 
Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Thus is highest 
homage paid to Him who sitteth on the " throne of his 
glory," who "was slain, and hast redeemed us to God by 
his blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and 

* Isaiah xlv. 23. t Philippians ii., 9-11. 



208 The Ground on which the 

nation, and hast made us unto our God kings and priests ; 
and we shall reign on the earth." * 

There is a passage which bears directly upon this 
subject, to which reference has been made in a former 
part of this work. Christ. Jesus the Lord is speaking to 
his disciples of the overthrow of sin and Satan. Jesus 
had previously said : " The hour is come that the Son of 
Man should be glorified." t Associated with his death 
and brought in close contact with it in this hour of 
extreme solicitude, pain and grief, is the great fact 
brought out through this means — the death of Christ — 
of the final vanquishment and judgment of that "old 
serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the 
whole world." Hence we have these words : " Now is 
the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this 
world be cast out." J It is in immediate connection with 
this event, the overthrow of the powers of darkness, the 
final judgment of Satan, — " Satan as lightning falling from 
heaven," § — when all opposition to Christ and his kingdom 
has ceased, that we have these life-giving, soul-imparting 
words of Jesus Christ: " And I, if I be lifted up from the 
earth, will draw all men unto me." || And to add greater 
significancy to these most remarkable words, the more 
deeply to impress them upon our minds, the inspired 
evangelist makes this comment : " This he said, signifying 
what death he should die." fl 

One can hardly fail at this point to be reminded of that 
strange scene in the wilderness, where the children of Israel, 
rebelling against God, were bitten by fiery serpents, but 
in the very agony of death, with the deadly poison circu- 
lating through their already benumbed limbs, soon to be 

* Revelation v., 9, 10. t John xii. 23. % John xii. 31. § Luke x. 18. 

|| John xii. 32. "fl" John xii. 33. 



Restitution of All Things actually Rests. 209 

cold and stiff in death, they had but to look at the brazen 
serpent set up on a lofty pole, and they were instantly 
healed.* We all know full well to what this refers, and 
the use our blessed Lord made of this most significant 
type in his discourse with Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, 
foreshadowing the manner of his death, himself "lifted 
up " on the cross, and as our passage reads, " drawing" — as 
the sun by its own innate force and heat draws the vapors 
of the earth and the -exhalations of the sea to itself — u all 
men unto him." They were but to look and live; to 
believe and " have eternal life." t And we have Christ 
Jesus the Lord's solemn oath, swearing by himself that 
" in due time" sooner or later, having " given himself a 
ransom for all," "every knee shall bow, and every tongue 
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the 
Father." 

Will not this be the grand jubilee of the world, fore- 
announced by that loud trump, which with every returning 
half-century proclaimed to the whole Jewish nation free- 
dom to every captive, the restoration of their inalienable 
patrimony to all who had temporarily forfeited it, by what- 
ever mischance this had taken place, whether by bad 
management, misconduct or misfortune, and the return of 
the nation to that state of primitive simplicity and equality 
from which they all started, share and share alike. It was 
not in any case a question whether as a prodigal they had 
wasted their estate ; whether through their own fault they 
had contracted debts and been sold into slavery ; the law 
of the land operated upon all alike, and, deserving or 
undeserving, all shared equally in the restoration of their 
property, freedom from enslavement, and could make a 
beginning a second time, taught, it is to be hoped, by 

* Numbers xxi., 8, 9. t John iii., 14, 15. 



2io The Ground on which the 

the experience of the past. Are there those who object to 
this indiscriminate apportionment, as if it encourages sloth 
and prodigality, and reflects upon the wisdom and equity 
of the lawgiver ? Does it not rather show us God as 
" merciful and gracious, long suffering and slow to anger," 
and who, having taken upon him our nature, stands in the 
relation to us of a merciful and faithful high priest, " who 
can have compassion on the ignorant and them that are 
out of the way ; for that he himself also is compassed with 
infirmity"?* 

Let justice once be satisfied; the law of God, holy, just 
and good, be vindicated; sin, that evil and bitter thing, 
shown to be exceeding sinful, hateful to God, dishonoring, 
ruinous to man, debasing in its nature, desolating and 
destructive in its effects both on mind and body, carrying 
inevitably with it the bitterest corrodings of grief — almost 
remediless grief; let all this be felt and made to appear 
through the cross on Calvary, and where will we find a limit 
to the love of God to man ? What is it that God desires 
but that man should be holy, even as he is holy ? This is 
what the death of Christ on the cross — the God-man — is 
destined to produce, and when, in that interminable exist- 
ence spread out before us — interminable, indeed ! — 
Christ Jesus the Lord, having been numbered with the 
transgressors, shall see his seed and be satisfied, then, and 
not until then will the character of our divine Redeemer 
be vindicated; while all animate and inanimate nature 
joins in an ascription of praise to him that sitteth on the 
throne, and to the Lamb forever and ever. The language 
of the following psalm indicates in some measure the 
height of rapture and the glow of feeling " when the whole 
earth is at rest and is quiet, and shall break forth into 
singing." t " Praise the Lord from the earth, ye dragons, 

* Hebrews v. 2. t Isaiah xiv. 7. 



Restitution of All Things actually Rests. 211 

and all deeps; fire and hail; snow and vapors; stormy- 
wind fulfilling his word ; mountains and all hills ; fruitful 
trees and all cedars ; beasts and all cattle ; creeping things 
and flying fowl ; kings of the earth and all people ; princes 
and all judges of the earth; both young men and 
maidens, old men and children : let them praise the 
name of the Lord; for his name alone is excellent, his 
glory is above the earth and heaven." * 

This is, in part, something of a picture of the day when, 
at the restitution of all things, the whole earth shall indeed 
be "at rest, and is quiet"; when, as the prophet Micah 
pleasingly describes it, the sound of war being heard only 
as an echo in the far past, " they shall sit, every man 
under his vine and under his fig-tree; and none shall 
make them afraid." f And when, as God sware by 
himself in the silence and solitariness of the wilderness, 
and in the presence of all the hosts of Israel, " But as truly 
as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the 
Lord." % 

But there is yet another thing to be mentioned (and we 
might, indeed, easily mention other things, though we 
forbear), growing out of our theme, the happy results of 
the restitution of all things, of a belief in, and a clear, 
distinct recognition of this great and oldest subject of all 
prophecy, as God has "spoken by the mouth of all his 
holy prophets since the world began," and that is, the 
entirely different aspect which it puts on the things of 
time and sense. What is, as you may say, more or less 
unreal and transitory, it makes real and all enduring. 
'Tis true, until the great change shall come, we have to 
say truly, with the prophet Isaiah, touched for the moment 
by the mournfulness of the prospect, the sadness of decay 
and change : " All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness 

* Psalm cxlviii., 7-13. t Micah iv. 4. \ Numbers xiv. 21. 



212 The Ground on which the 

thereof is as the flower of the field : the grass withereth, 
the flower fadeth ; because the spirit of the Lord bloweth 
upon it : surely the people is grass : the grass withereth, 
the flower fadeth, but the word of our God shalt stand 
forever" * But does not this apply to all who believe 
the gospel, leaving out this distinct recognition and 
acknowledgment of the restitution of all things, placing 
the world back in a holy and happy state, creating new 
heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness ? 
In a degree it does, but not in the same degree. Other- 
wise, why should God teach it to us ? Why inspire all his 
holy prophets to speak of it ? Why make it the chief and 
ever-recurring theme of prophecy ? Why permeate the 
whole Bible with it ? Why make it the first and last thing 
of this Book of Books ? While the knowledge of the 
disclosure of "the mystery of God " was the joy and hope 
of his servants the prophets, revealed to them all in turn 
as they were successively " sent of God " (as was John the 
Baptist) to be his witnesses and pre-announce the coming 
of Christ ; while it was also pre-eminently " the joy that 
was set before Christ," as he accomplished his earthly 
mission, even the establishment of his kingdom on the 
earth, why should it be taken out of the range of our 
vision, that which has been for so many ages in the past 
the chief solace and support of God's people, prophets, 
patriarchs and champions of the right and the truth, and 
even of Jesus Christ our Lord himself, as it is impossible 
fairly to deny, seeing it was the accomplishment of his 
great work on earth, and not his own personal and indi- 
vidual joy, which he ever kept in mind, and was his 
motive, object and aim ? 

While we look forward by faith to the renewal of our 
lives here on this renewed earth, the renewal of hopes and 

* Isaiah xl., 6, 7, 8. 



Restitution of All Things actually Rests. 213 

joys no more destined to blight and disappointment; to 
the renewal of friendships which will know no intermixture 
of alloy ; to the sweet society and companionship of the 
good "of all ages/' of him whom, having not yet seen, 
we loved; while, indeed, we drink at the well-spring of 
life itself, it seems to us the dark vail upon time will be 
almost rent asunder as, like the patriarchs, we wander to 
and fro, while the knowledge that God, 

" Deep in unfathomable mines 
Of never-failing skill," 

is working out his own "bright designs" — the final 
"restitution of all things" — will cast over the whole face of 
nature a brighter aspect than it has yet possessed; and 
assure us that ultimately he will overrule all evil for our 
best good and the glory of his most holy name. 



VIII. 



THE GLORY OP THE LORD FILLING THE EARTH. 



CHAPTER I. 



Last Words. 



PERHAPS there is nothing more natural to the 
sensuous mind, as we survey the blue firmament 
stretched over our heads, the solid earth beneath our feet, 
the everlasting hills towering to the skies, and hear the roar 
of old ocean's sounding wave, than to say with those who 
lived in the times of the apostles, some two thousand 
years since, " Where is the promise of his coming ? for 
since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they 
were from the creation." * Had they lived in these our 
days, after the lapse of so long a period, during which, 
amid a thousand revolutions in society and among 
nations, there has been no perceptible change in the 
material creation, all things still remaining as they were, 
they might seemingly with greater propriety say the same 
thing. But in this they err, forgetting that the measure- 
ment of time with the Lord is on a scale very different 

* II. Peter iii. 4. 



IO 



217 



218 The Glory of the Lord filling the Earth. 

from what it is with us; '-that one day is with the Lord 
as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." * 

Indeed, what is time with God, or what will it be with 
us when we enter upon a boundless state of existence ? 
Our present short life will, in the comparison, dwindle 
down to a shadow — to a mere speck floating on ocean's 
heaving wave. The very brevity of human life, with its 
pains and sorrows, considering the almost infinite capacity 
with which man is endowed and the power of physical 
endurance which he possesses, is an argument sufficient of 
itself to assure us of a life beyond this, where, under 
other and fairer auspices, we shall attain to that perfection 
of our being and full realization of our cherished hopes 
which are now beyond our grasp and unattainable in this 
present condition of things. This would seem as if it 
ought, without the aid of divine revelation, to prepare us 
for material changes in the creation of God so far as may 
affect our future well-being, and satisfy that insatiable 
thirst, that longing for immortality, which is born in us and 
never dies. 

But whatever doubt philosophy or the reasoning of 
Plato may leave on the mind in regard to the immortality 
of the soul, the Bible leaves none. But it goes beyond 
this. It teaches a future for the renewed earth and the 
glorified body when time shall close, the end of the world 
come, and, to some extent, a new, improved condition of 
things commence. 

As respects the expressions, "the end of all things is 
at hand," "end of the world," "there should be time no 
longer," — if we are careful to trace them respectively in 
this connection, we shall find, we think, in every case that 
they are resolved into " the day of the Lord," " the Lord 
is at hand," the second appearing of Christ ; so that it 

* II. Peter iii. 8. 



The Glory of the Lord filling the Earth. 219 

would appear from the use of the phrase "end of the 
world," and "there should be time no longer," that it is 
somewhat vague and indefinite in its character, and ought 
to present to the mind the sublime spectacle of the second 
coming of Christ — "the coming of the day of God." # 

We think, the more carefully we examine sacred scripture 
on this point, there is one thing belonging to the future 
which overtops everything else, and is conjoined more or 
less closely, as it may be near or remote, with that wonderful 
passage of which so much use has been made in this work, 
and on which, indeed, it is founded, to wit : " Whom the 
heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all 
things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his 
holy prophets since the world began." This amazing 
crisis in affairs human and divine, temporal and spiritual, 
relating to earth and heaven, may be said to mark in one 
sense the end of time and of the world. It is a mere 
mode of speaking — nothing more. As for the end of the 
world, as we are in the habit of speaking, there is no such 
thing, — that is, in reality; for the moment it is destroyed 
by fire (to what extent who can tell?) it will re-appear in 
the form of a new creation; and when we speak, as we 
are in the habit of speaking, saying, "The end of all 
things is at hand," we do but prefigure, pre-announce the 
coming and the age of Christ — the beginning of that 
complete overturn in human affairs, the restitution of all 
things. If you please, you may say time ends here and 
eternity is begun ; but, after all, there is no interval where 
the regular concatenation of events is interrupted. All 
things, like clock-work, continue to go on to a great end, 
to an infinitely wise and merciful result; and if time is 
lost and swallowed in the vast ocean of eternity, like the 
moment we cease to breathe, we do not know it. 

* II. Peter iii. 12. 



220 The Glory of the Lord filling the Earth. 

As an illustration, perhaps, of the somewhat indefinite 
manner in which we speak of "the end of the world," we 
have these words of Christ: "And this gospel of the 
kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness 
unto all nations ; and then shall the end come; " * and is 
explained in a continuous discourse by the further state- 
ment that the coining of the Son of man will be as 
sudden " as the lightning which cometh out of the east, 
and shineth even unto the west." f 

This was in reply to the question put by his disciples to 
our Lord in relation to this very thing : "What shall be 
the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world ? " % 
Not as if these were two distinct interrogations; for in 
effect they are one and the same — as if the sign of our 
Lord's coming and the end of the world constituted one 
great and grand event. And all our Lord says on this 
subject, with the various particulars mentioned, though 
certainly more or less obscure, refers not so much, it 
appears to us, to the destruction of Jerusalem as to his 
coming ; or if, indeed, there is a reference more or less to 
the overthrow of the city, it is in a secondary sense. 
From the conclusion which our Lord draws, however, 
singular as the language in some respects is, and resem- 
bling that which describes the sack and burning of the 
holy city under Titus, it is "the coming of the Son of 
man" which is described. Besides, in the closest connec- 
tion with the above we are told, "Then shall all the tribes 
of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man 
coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great 
glory." § 

As to time and its final close, there is a singularly 
striking and impressive description of it in the following 

* Matthew xxiv. 14. t Matthew xxiv. 27. % Matthew xxiv. 3. 
§ Matthew xxiv. 30. 



The Glory of the Lord filling the Earth. 221 

passage. There is seen a mighty angel coming down 
from heaven, clothed Avith a cloud, having in his hand a 
little book; and he sets his right foot on the sea, and his 
left foot on the earth, and swears by him that liveth for- 
ever and ever that there should be time no longer; "but" (it 
is immediately subjoined without finishing the sentence) 
" in the days of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to 
sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath 
declared to his servants the prophets." * 

So that, after all, the final close of time itself is neither 
more nor less than synonymous with the conclusion of the 
mystery of God; or that day of wonders when truth shall 
triumph over error, right over usurpation, good over evil ; 
in a word, that illustrious day when "the kingdoms of 
this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of 
his Christ ; and he shall reign forever and ever." f 

There is, therefore, an uncertain sound, a vague and 
indefinite meaning attached to such words as " the end of 
the world and of time," unless we associate them directly 
with the revelation of Christ from heaven — that personal 
re-appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ on our earth, when 
he will do what none else can do — "restore all things." 
The last days are consequently the beginning of the best 
days ; and in fact there will be no such days as last days. 
"The last time,"f as it is phrased, is but another way 
of saying Antichrist is dethroned, and all have come 
to the acknowledgment of this one great, universal truth : 
"In that day shall there be one Lord, and his name one." § 

* Revelation x., i, 2, 6, 7. t Revelation xi. 15. % I. John ii. 18. 
§ Zechariah xiv. 9. 






CHAPTER II. 



There Shall Be No More Curse. 



T is somewhat remarkable that the books of the Old 
Testament close with the prophecy that " the curse " 
pronounced upon the man and the woman and the serpent, 
and "the ground for man's sake," is to be removed; while 
the close of the books of the New Testament assure us of 
the fulfillment of this prophecy — "and there shall be no 
more curse." How strangely, at three different and highly 
important epochs in the history of man, and the over- 
ruling providence of God, does this connect the Bible 
together as one book, having ever one aim, one design, 
and illustrating this saying of holy writ delivered by James 
at a conference of apostles and elders held in the city of 
Jerusalem : " Known unto God are all his works from the 
beginning of the world." * He sees the end from the 
beginning, and will cause all things ultimately to work 
together for the best good of his creature man. This we 

* Acts xv. 18. 



The Glory of the Lord filling the Earth. 223 

have reiterated often enough; and now comes, as the 
conclusion of the whole matter and the perfection of all 
good, "and there shall be no more curse." 

Whatever else men may say against the Book of Revela- 
tion, they cannot but acknowledge that all that is included 
in "the curse," the different points embraced and de- 
nounced, have been fulfilled to the very letter, and are 
fulfilling to this very day. Neither can any go back of 
these words and say there is nothing in them but what is 
drawn from the experience of the past ; for search history 
throughout and you can find no written words to precede 
them, — none so authentic. They are, therefore, propheti- 
cal, and proceed from the mouth of God. 

The curse pronounced upon the serpent is indeed most 
extraordinary, and, rightly viewed, tends to place this 
scene in the garden (so often made the subject of con- 
temptuous ridicule) among the most solemn realities of 
divine truth. The language employed is singularly striking 
and instructive. It is as follows: "And the Lord God 
said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art 
cursed above all cattle and above every beast of the field; 
upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all 
the days of thy life ; and I will put enmity between thee 
and the woman ; it [the seed of the woman] shall bruise 
thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel."* 

The superiority of the serpent both as to form and 
stature, as prince of the beasts of the field, moving as lord 
and king among them, is evident; otherwise the curse 
pronounced would be meaningless, void and empty. 
Mark the language, how forcible ! " Thou art cursed 
above all cattle, and above every beast of the field." And 
inasmuch as "everything that God had made" in the 

* Genesis iii., 14, 15. 



224 The Glory of the Lord filling the Earth. 

beginning "was very good"* — not simply good, but 
"very good" — what a thing of beauty, what a creature 
of mold, must this serpent (now so odious) have been, 
" ranging the blest fields on the banks of the river." 

As to his stature, it was straight, perfectly erect; other- 
wise the curse pronounced and the degradation that 
followed would not apply : " Upon thy belly shall thou go, 
and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life" — of which 
we have sufficient ocular demonstration. 

But what most distinguished this beast of the field (what 
shall we call it ?) was his sagaciousness ; and this in a 
good sense; for no cloud, no defect, no aberration from 
the line of right could as yet be charged upon "anything 
that God had made." When, therefore, we read : " Now 
the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field 
which the Lord God had made," f the word must not be 
used in a bad sense. Here the mystery of the transaction 
begins, and in whatever way we view it there is more or 
less difficulty attending it. If we conclude, as was the 
case in our Lord's time, that this was an instance of 
demoniacal possession, and that the Devil made the ser- 
pent subservient to his evil purpose (which, indeed, is the 
most probable solution of the difficulty), then we ask, must 
"the curse" descend upon him and his progeny because 
of the act of another ? Yet on all of Adam's race does 
not the curse fall heavily, terribly, though but one, the 
original progenitor of the race, sinned, — so that, as we read, 
" By one man's offense death reigned by one " ? \ What 
has not the whole race of man suffered, what is it not 
undergoing daily, in consequence of "one man's offense"? 
Surely there is a purpose in this, — a purpose worthy of 
God, and sooner or later designed to conduce to the 

* Genesis i. 31. t Genesis iii. 1. \ Romans v. 17. 



The Glory of the Lord filling the Earth. 225 

best good of man ; for the Lord our God never loses sight 
of what in the end will most contribute to the eternal 
well-being of his creature man. One object, doubtless, is 
not only to show what an " evil and bitter thing " sin is in 
itself, in its own nature, but how dreadful in its conse- 
quences, its dire effects, involving the innocent with the 
guilty even to a thousand generations, and so make an 
impression for good as against evil, for truth as against 
falsehood, for purity as against uncleanness, for love as 
against hatred, for obedience as opposed to disobedience, 
which would be as lasting as eternity. 

But passing by this, we come to an absolute reality, a 
plain matter of fact, where in his own proper person the 
Tempter is recognized, and the plan of the great contest 
between Christ Jesus our blessed Lord and the grand adver- 
sary of God and man is clearly laid down. At the first the 
tide — man's nature at the fountain-head being corrupted 
— flows nearly one way, sweeping all before it; then comes 
a reaction, and as the conflict closes, Jesus, conqueror of 
sin and death and the grave, reigns and shall forever reign. 
Hence our Lord speaks not as to one who is for the time 
the representative of another, or the medium through 
which another acts, but (and oh, how solemn is the 
thought and deep the tragedy which is involved!) to Satan 
himself; and here we find the first ray of light issuing — 
going forth to brighten the otherwise impenetrably dark 
scene: "And I will put enmity between thee and the 
woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it [the seed 
of the woman, that is, Christ Jesus the Lord] shall bruise 
thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." * 

Here the curse unfolds itself; as two portentous, dark, 
threatening clouds, rising from different quarters of the 

* Genesis iii. 15. 
13* 



226 The Glory of the Lord filling the Earth. 

heavens, swiftly overspreading the sky, meet and cover 
the o'erhanging canopy, so bright and fair before, with the 
blackness of darkness, forked lightning darting from 
beneath the murky cloud, and all nature threatening storm 
and tempest, so now "the curse" wraps earth and sky in 
darkness, and portents dark and ominous foretell the woes 
coming on the earth. This is no imaginary picture ; it is 
a solemn reality. No pen can make it dark enough, and to 
this source is to be traced all the evils of time, all the woes, 
ever recurring, carrying wide waste and desolation in their 
track, which have fallen on the whole human race "from 
the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same." 

Hence, as we further eliminate "the curse," we read: 
" Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy 
sorrow and thy conception ; in sorrow thou shalt bring 
forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and 
he shall rule over thee." * 

" And unto Adam he said, Cursed is the ground for 
thy sake ; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy 
life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; 
and thou shalt eat the herb of the field ; in the sweat of 
thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the 
ground ; for out of it wast thou taken : for dust thou art, 
and unto dust shalt thou return." f 

Gloomy as this picture is, foreshadowing from first to 
last innumerable evils — that is, looking upon "the curse" 
in its entireness (not forgetting some alleviations, as, for 
instance, labor often made a blessing, more or less, in the 
present condition of things, but never when men are 
ground down by oppression — then, truly, is it a curse), yet 
" the dark cloud has a silver lining " ; man's condition is 
not hopeless; he is not to contend forever against his 
unhappy fate. God never extinguishes hope in the human 

* Genesis iii. 16. t Genesis iii., 17, 18, 19. 



The Glory of the Lord filling the Earth. 227 

breast. That would be unlike God, and a reproach upon 
his " holy and reverend name." Turning, therefore, to the 
serpent, the Lord says, after having given to him a wide 
scope of action — "the world as a field," — he says of the 
forthcoming seed of the woman, to be manifested in due 
time, "// shall bruise thy head." * 

Now rises first to view, as the sun rising in the east, and 
showing that glorious orb emerging from the dusky shades 
of night, the promise of a Saviour, couched in words some- 
what obscure, but made more distinct and intelligible with 
every succeeding revelation from God, as made known by 
the mouth of his servants the prophets. It is Malachi, 
the last of the old prophets, who closes the Old Testament 
with the distinct enunciation that John the Baptist, the 
forerunner of Christ, would initiate the Christian religion, 
and commence a reformation the design and end of which 
was not merely for a time to suspend or partially to 
modify the effects of the curse, but, by the power which 
raised up Christ Jesus from the dead, wholly to remove it 
from the face of the earth, so that, in the words of John 
the revelator, "And there shall be no more curse." f 

What does this refer to unless it be to our groaning 
earth? What else, indeed! Upon this earth it fell, 
heavy and sad, filling the air with sighs and lamentations 
from that day to this. It was to remove this dire curse 
from the earth that " God was manifest in the flesh, justified 
in the spirit," and died upon the tree. Hence it is written, 
" Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree." J So, also, 
we read, " Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the 
law, being made a curse for us." § 

" For what the law could not do, in that it was weak 
through the flesh, God sending his own son in the likeness 

* Genesis iii. 15. t Revelation xxii. 3. I Galatians iii. 13 ; Deuteronomy xxi. 23. 

§ Galatians iii. 13. 



228 The Glory of the Lord filling the Earth. 

of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh; 
that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, 
who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit." * 

In connection with the complete removal of "the curse" 
from the earth, there is necessarily conjoined with it the 
removal of the load of condemnation and guilt which 
rests upon us all individually and collectively, and it is in 
this sense Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the 
law, having been made a curse for us. Thus, while 
through Christ "the ground is no more cursed for man's 
sake," and all other attendant evils and calamities far 
away removed, — no longer an impure atmosphere, a 
burning sun, hyperborean cold, moving disasters by sea 
and land, death in every form, an endless train, — on the 
other hand, through the assumption of our nature by Christ 
Jesus the Lord, " God sending his own son in the likeness 
of sinful flesh, and for sin," frees us from condemnation, 
and we find that " the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ 
Jesus hath made us free from the law of sin and death." f 

May not this in a certain sense be called a marriage all 
divine ? — a new earth, from whence " the curse" has been 
wholly taken ; Paradise restored, with the tree of life on 
either side of the river, and inhabitants simple and holy 
and good, "trees of righteousness, the planting of the 
Lord, that he may be glorified " ; dwelling where the 
progenitors of our race dwelt; rejoicing in "the restitu- 
tion of all things," according to God's faithful word. 

Is that one word true — " And there shall be no i?iore 
curse" ? "And he said unto me, These sayings are faith- 
ful and true : and the Lord God of the holy prophets 
sent his angel to show unto his servants the things which 
must shortly be done." % 

* Romans viii., 3, 4. t Romans viii. 2. + Revelation xxii. 6. 



CHAPTER III. 

The Lord King Over All the Earth. 

<< \ ND the Lord shall be king over all the earth"* 
il. presupposes, as a matter of course, the greatest 
event in the future history of our world, the second coming 
of Christ Jesus the Lord, "to judge the world with right- 
eousness, and the people with his truth." t Of this it is 
impossible to have a more positive assurance, expressed in 
the plainest language, than was given by two angels who, 
while the disciples " looked steadfastly toward heaven as 
the Lord went up," stood by them ere, indeed, they were 
aware of their presence, "which also said, Ye men of 
Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven ? This same 
Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come 
in like manner as ye have seen him go i?ito heaven." \ 

This cannot possibly be gainsaid; no language could 
be more exact or explicit, or proceed from a higher source 
— even from the throne of God itself. And what should 

* Zechariah xiv. 9. t Psalm xcvi. 13. \ Acts i., 10, 11. 
229 



230 The Glory of the Lord filling the Earth. 

be carefully noted and laid to heart is, "He shall come i)i 
like manner as he was seen to go into heaven." It is "the 
man Christ Jesus," "the mediator between God and men," 
"who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due 
time," who is to appear among us again (give glory to his 
most holy name !) in the same form as aforetime, as a man 
once more among men, and to be distinctly recognized by 
the hole in his pierced side and the marks of the nails in 
his hands and feet, which he received in our behalf, as it 
is written, " He shall come in like manner as he was seen 
to go into heaven." 

What a spectacle! — a spectacle for men and angels. 
All will know him to be the self-same Jesus at whose 
presence, we read, " Every island fled away, and the 
mountains were not found";* of whom also we read, 
" Behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing." t 

In the same connection in which we are expressly told 
in the prophecy of Zechariah that the Lord shall be king 
over all the earth, and from whence also we learn that the 
spot — Mount Olivet — which our Saviour's feet last trod will 
receive the first imprint of his feet on his coming again, % 
we read that "all the land" in the vicinity of Jerusalem, 
instead of retaining its present rough, mountainous, sterile 
aspect, shall become "a plain" — doubtless a rich, fertile, 
flowery plain. Its limits, width and extent are thus mi- 
nutely described : " All the land shall be turned as a plain, 
from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem ; and it shall 
be lifted up and inhabited in her place, from Benjamin's 
gate unto the place of the first gate, unto the corner gate, 
and from the town of Hananeel unto the king's wine- 
presses. And men shall dwell in it, and there shall be no 
more utter destruction, but Jerusalem shall be safely 
inhabited." § 

* Revelation xvi. 20. t Isaiah xl. 15. | Zechariah xiv. 4. § Zechariah xiv., io, 11. 



The Glory of the Lord filling the Earth. 231 

Thus it would indeed seem as if all things in and 
around the city, the great name of which is to be " The 
Lord is there" are preparing the way for our Lord's second 
advent; and, as we also read in Isaiah, for the time 
"when the Lord of hosts shall reign in Mount Zion, and 
^in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously." * 

In that remarkable dream of King Nebuchadnezzar, 
foreshowing "what should come to pass hereafter," the 
main design is to show that " the kingdoms of this world, 
and the glory of them," are in the end to be superseded 
by "the kingdom of our Lord and his Christ, and he 
shall reign forever." f This, to us, seems most evident 
from the dream itself. While " the visions of his head, upon 
his bed," passed before the king, his thoughts, ere he fell 
asleep, ran upon what was to come to pass hereafter. 
In his dream he saw "a great image, whose brightness 
was excellent, and its form was terrible. This image's 
head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his 
belly and his thighs of brass, his legs of iron, his feet part 
of iron and part of clay," \ foreshadowing, strictly speak- 
ing, the four great universal empires of our world. The 
Chaldean, then at its most flourishing epoch, was "this 
head of gold"; next in the order of time and regular 
succession was the great Persian empire, illustrated by the 
name, exploits and reign of Cyrus, predestined to fill a 
high place in the annals of God's providential dealings 
with the children of men ; now appears on the great stage 
of time Alexander the Great, who in an exceedingly short 
space of time (an instrument in the hands of divine 
providence) overran all Asia, his conquests extending 
eastward reached to the Indus, and who, in the plenitude 
of his power, established what is regarded as the third 
universal empire, styled the Greek or Macedonian, desig- 

* Isaiah xxiv. 23. t Revelation xi. 15. + Daniel ii., 31, 32, 33. 



232 The Glory of the Lord fillings the Earth. 

nated by the belly and thighs of brass of the great and 
terrible image. 

Last of all came the Roman legions, trampling under 
their iron hoofs all the nations of the earth, and constituting 
the fourth universal empire; but with " this fourth king- 
dom, strong as iron," falling a prey to Goths and Vandals 
and the barbarous hordes from the northern hive, there 
was an end to that coherence, that union of many in one, 
which belonged to these four grand monarchies, and 
which has belonged to none in the same full sense of the 
word ever since. The various kingdoms which have 
arisen since the decline and fall of the Roman Empire 
have in the main subsisted as separate and distinct 
monarchies or kingdoms, all of which, when the time shall 
come, "that were of iron and clay" a stone "cut out 
without hands" "shall break to pieces"; for "they shall 
not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with 
clay."* "Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the 
silver and the gold broken to pieces together" (all the 
kingdoms of this world, modern as well as ancient) "and 
became like the chaff of the summer threshing-floors, and 
the wind carried them away, that no place was found for 
them; and the stone that smote the image became a 
great mountain, and filled the whole earth." f 

It is not, then, by any means a matter of so much 
moment to define expressly who are specially meant by 
the phrase " in the days of these kings shall the God of 
heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed," 
as that at any " set time," in the wisdom of God, whoever 
among the kings of the earth shall then be reigning, this 
kingdom shall be set up, which is never — no, never — to 
share the fate of other nations, people and kingdoms; 

* Daniel ii. 43. t Daniel ii. 35. 



The Glory of the Lord filling the Earth. 2$$ 

which is to survive them all ; " and the kingdom shall not 
be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and 
consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever." * 

These, then, are the two prominent characteristics, as 
expressed in the above passage, which are to mark the 
kingdom whose limits will be commensurate with the 
whole earth, and of which the Lord is to be king. First 
it shall break in pieces and consume all other kingdoms, 
insomuch that whatever their glory or greatness, how 
wide soever their extent, they will be as "the chaff of the 
summer threshing-floors, which the wind driveth away, so 
that no place will be found for them"; and, secondly, 
unlike all other of the great kingdoms of the world, which 
have their rise, their meridian splendor and decay, "it will 
stand forever." 

If we should examine with some care the main drift 
and ultimatum of the book of the Revelation of Jesus 
Christ, from the opening of the first seal, where our Lord 
is figuratively represented as " seated on a white horse, 
with a bow in his hand and a crown on his head, going 
forth conquering and to conquer" f until the last of the 
seven plagues ("for in them is filled up the wrath of God" %) 
is poured forth from the last of the seven golden vials into 
the air, and there is heard " a great voice out of the temple 
of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done," § we shall 
find, as in the vision of the Chaldean king, that there is 
depicted, from first to last, "the victory that our Lord 
Christ obtains over the beast, and over his image, and 
over his mark, and over his name." || It is when the 
victory is fully gained, when all enemies are put under his 
feet, when all heaven shall unite in saying, " Now is come 

* Daniel ii. 44. t Revelation vi. 2. % Revelation xv. 1. 
§ Revelation xvi. 17. || Revelation xv. 2. 



234 The Glory of the Lord filling the Earth. 

salvation and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and 
the power of his Christ," * that then will the top stone be 
brought forth, and this will be the universal cry : " Alle- 
luia : for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth " ; f 
or, as we have more than once already quoted, " The 
kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our 
Lord and his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever." J 
Come, behold the most illustrious of all spectacles. 
Jesus Christ, " according to the oath which God sware 
unto David, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the 
flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne," § 
now seated thereon in great majesty, power and glory, 
while 

" One song employs all nations, and all cry, 
Worthy the Lamb, for he was slain for us. 
The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks 
Shout to each other, and the mountain tops 
From distant mountains catch the flying joy, 
Till nation after nation, taught the strain, 
Each rolls the rapturous Hosannah round." 

There is, however, connected with the great fact that 
" The Lord shall be king over all the earth," this signifi- 
cant additional clause, " In that day shall there be one 
Lord, and his name one." || This is tantamount to what 
St. Paul says : " Then cometh the end, when he shall have 
delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father ; when 
he shall have put down all rule and all authority and 
power, for he must reign until he hath put all enemies 
under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is 
death." ff 

* Revelation xii. 10. t Revelation xix. 6. \ Revelation xi. 15. § Acts ii. 30. 
|| Zechariah xiv. 9. "[[ I. Corinthians xv., 24, 25, 26. 



The Glory of the Lord filling the Earth. 235 

This looks forward to the time when Christ Jesus the 
Lord, having performed his office as "mediator between 
God and men," having "given himself a ransom for all, to 
be testified in due time," having "fulfilled the law and 
made it honorable," having, in a word, answered every 
purpose for which he assumed our nature, and brought a 
rebellious world in sweet subjection to pay homage at his 
feet, now assumes his true relation to man and the 
universe which he made and presides over, " who is over 
all, God blessed forever. Amen." # This is equivalent to 
saying with St. Paul, "Then shall the Son" (having as 
such done all that belonged to him in his relation as the 
Son of man) "also himself be subject unto him that put all 
things under him, that God may be all in all"; f or, as it 
is also expressed in the prophecy of Zechariah (both 
writers, inspired by the Holy Spirit, agreeing on this 
greatly controverted point), " In that day shall there be 
one Lord, and his name one." Jesus the Saviour, as a 
name, will never be forgotten; as "the Lamb of God 
which taketh away the sin of the world" this is impossible; 
but he will be known, acknowledged and understood as 
The Lord, Jehovah, testifying forevermore to these words 
of Jesus to Philip of Bethsaida, in reply to the request, 
" Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us " : "Jesus 
saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and 
yet hast thou not known me, Philip ? He that hath seen 
me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou, Show us 
the Father ? '"' % 

In another passage on the same subject, brief and 
explicit, we read: "And he that seeth 7?ie seeth him that 
sent me." § 

There is this, however, to satisfy the insatiable longing 

* Romans ix. 5. t I. Corinthians xv. 28. % John xiv., 8, 9. § John xii. 45. 



236 The Glory of the Lord filling the Earth. 

of the human heart — we shall see "the King in his 
beauty." This Avill be a charm that will never cease to 
bewitch us, — a beauty that the eye will never tire in 
beholding. The language of Solomon's Song is a faint 
attempt, though nothing human can describe it, to give 
some idea, some vivid conception, of the indescribable 
loveliness of that face, " which was more marred than any 
man's," furrowed with grief on our account. Well may 
the song of songs say, " Behold, thou art fair, my love ; 
thou art all fair, my love : there is no spot in thee." * 

Amid majesty divine, glory unapproachable, as God 
over all, blessed for evermore, Christ Jesus the Lord in 
his human form will entrance all eyes, win all hearts, rule 
all wills and, seated on the throne of his father David, 
will reign in glory over all worlds through life everlasting. 

We suppose there will be comparatively few, even of 
those who receive the great truth that "all scripture is 
given by inspiration of God," that " holy men spake as 
they were moved by the Holy Spirit," who will admit 
what nevertheless holy scripture so clearly teaches and 
absolutely affirms, the grand subject of this chapter, and, 
indeed, in the main of this entire work, the universal 
sovereignty and dominion of Jesus Christ as " king over all 
the earth." The thing in itself is so incredible; the 
personal reign of Christ on this earth is so opposed to all 
our preconceived ideas and notions of things ; we have so 
long in our minds been detached from the earth and its 
associations and objects that we have seen,*and carried 
away and almost identified with the heaven that we have 
not seen, and of which in reality we know so little, that we 
are ever ready to spurn the one and think of nothing 
short of the other. We almost forget that God made 
both heaven and earth, and this earth especially for man, 

I Solomon's Song, i. 15 ; iv. 7. 



The Glory of the Lord filling the Earth. 237 

making him the lord of creation, the supreme ruler of all 
here below. 

But why should it be thought a thing so incredible that 
Christ Jesus the Lord, the creator, the maker of all worlds, 
the maker of all things, the author of life, should reign in 
person on this earth, sitting on the throne of his glory ? 
What is this in comparison to what he has already done 
for rebellious man, to an act as infinitely above and before 
this as the heavens are above the earth, or as one thing can 
be before another ? What comparison is there, in point of 
lowering one's dignity, by "sitting on the throne of David, 
reigning over the house of Jacob forever, while of his 
kingdom, covering the whole earth, there shall be no 
end " * (as the angel Gabriel pre-announced to the Virgin 
Mary), to that transcendently glorious act of the great 
God, "which art, and wast, and art to come," the 
Almighty, leaving his throne in the heavens, where he was 
continually worshiped and adored by countless myriads 
of holy beings, to his vailing himself in the form of a man, 
consenting to be born of a virgin, and finally submitting 
to the painful and ignominious death of the cross. There 
can no comparison be instituted. The one is as nothing 
to the other. Keeping this in mind, not overlooking the 
comparison, the personal reign of Christ on the earth 
loses all its strangeness, and becomes easy, natural and as 
a matter of course to a thinking and reasonable mind. 
For whom was this done, — • this amazing act of the great 
God clothing himself with our nature, becoming a man of 
flesh and blood like ourselves, subject to pain, weariness, 
distress, hunger and thirst — for whom indeed was this done 
but for man ? Yes, truly ; and for the vilest, most 
degraded, brutishly stupefied man on the face of the earth. 
Having done so much to raise man from the depths of 

* Luke i., 32, 33. 



2 33 The Glory of the Lord filling the Earth. 

the fall, to crown him anew " with glory and honor," 
" to make men " (to use the language of Jesus Christ, 
quoting from the Psalms) " gods," placing them, as one 
may venture to say, on the same elevation as himself, is it 
very wonderful that Jesus Christ, " the Lord of glory," 
should desire to reign personally over his redeemed, 
belonging to every land, the children of every clime ? 
And why not on the broad earth, from which, by his 
death and resurrection from the dead, he has uplifted " the 
curse," and which he has denominated and honored by 
the appellation of " the earth, his footstool," " the place of 
the soles of his feet," which he " will make glorious," * 
and where "he will dwell forever"? t Surely, if the Lord 
of heaven and earth could voluntarily submit to become a 
man for our sakes and, carrying our burdens, endure 
without a murmur and almost without a sigh or groan all 
the indignities, pain and suffering to which he was sub- 
jected here on the earth, it should require no great stretch 
of faith or exercise of mind to conceive and perhaps- admit 
that Christ the Lord may signalize his triumph over sin, 
death and the grave, and all the power of the enemy, by 
"taking to him his great power" \ and imder one name — that 
of the Lord God Almighty, omnipotent, § "be king over all 
the earth." For thus " is finished the mystery of God, as 
he hath declared to his servants the prophets," || the awful 
mystery of time, sin, misery, death and the grave. "And 
a voice came out of the throne, saying, Praise our God, 
all ye his servants, and ye that fear him, both small and 
great. And I heard as it were the voice of a great 
multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the 
voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia : for 
the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." ^ 

* Isaiah Ix. 13. t Ezekiel xliii. 7. + Revelation xi. 17. § Revelation xix. 6. 

|| Revelation x. 7. fT Revelation xix., 5,. 6. 



CHAPTER IV. 



The Glory of the Lord to Fill the Earth. 



IN the course of that wonderful series of chapters, 
even if dark and obscure, in the prophecy of 
Ezekiel, from the fortieth to the end of the book, we 
find this striking passage : " Afterward he brought me 
to the gate, even the gate that looketh toward the 
east ; and, behold, the glory of the God of Israel came 
from the way of the east ; and his voice was like a 
noise of many waters ; and the earth shined with his 
glory."* 

If there be any one thing more than another predi- 
cated of this earth, and to be fulfilled in the latter days 
without the shadow of a question or a qualifying doubt, it 
is that this earth, now so deeply overshadowed with the 
gloom of sin and its inevitable sequence, death, is to be 
filled with the glory of the Lord." Is it not strange, 
with this broad fact staring us full in the face, that we 
turn away from this fair earth with a sort of holy horror 
and disgust, as if God had not enunciated it to his 

* Ezekiel xlih., i, 2. 
239 



240 The Glory of the Lord filling the Ea?ih. 

servants the prophets over and over again, and con- 
firmed it, also, by a solemn oath ? 

We repeat once more the solemn affirmation (and it 
would bear repeating ten thousand, thousand times) : 
'• But as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with 
the glory of the Lord." * To the same high and holy 
purport speaks Isaiah, drawing his inspiration from the 
same heavenly source : " The glory of the Lord shall 
be revealed, a?id all flesh shall see it together ; for the 
mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." f 

What guarantee need we more than this ? As if to 
make assurance doubly sure, to remove every vestige of 
doubt from the mind, and sharply to reprove blind unbelief, 
we are told : " The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." 
And what God hath spoken, his Almighty power will 
not fail to accomplish in his own good time and way. 

Up to this time this cannot be said. It is nearly if 
not quite as true to-day as when Isaiah wrote and 
spoke, " For, behold, the darkness shall cover the 
earth, and gross darkness the people." $ As yet the 
light of the glory of the Lord has but touched the 
outer edge of the surface of that black cloud which 
hangs ominous and threatening over the greater part 
of the habitable earth ; while most assuredly the 
abundance of the sea, or the noise of the waves of the 
sea, does not as yet waft the nations — "their silver and 
their gold with them — unto the name of the Lord thy 
God, and to the holy one of Israel." § 

We can hardly avoid connecting in some way or 
other " the glory of the Lord, that God hath sworn 
shall fill the earth," with the fulfillment of that promise 
which is the concentration of all the promises (dating 

* Numbers xiv. 21. f Isaiah xl. 5. J Isaiah lx. 2. § Isaiah lx., 5, 9. 



The Glory of the Lord filliiig the Earth. 241 

from the time the world began), to " the Dew 
heavens and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteous- 
ness." When righteousness takes up its abode on our 
earth as its native home, when righteousness is the vital 
air we breathe, when its perfume fills both earth and sky 
and no sound of dissonance is heard from any source, 
then we may reasonably conclude that " the earth 
doth indeed shine with the glory of the God of Israel." 

Of course, any attempt to define with exactness what 
we understand by " new heavens and a new earth " is 
not easy ; but there is some light cast upon it 
from the glowing language of Isaiah, which shows 
perhaps that we should not press the passage too far 
beyond its legitimate meaning. One of the passages to 
which we refer is as follows : " For, behold, I create 
new heavens and a new earth : and the former shall not 
be remembered, nor come into mind. But be ye glad 
and rejoice forever in that which I create : for, behold, I 
create Jerusalem a rejoicing and her people a joy."* 

There is another passage of a somewhat similar 
import : " And I have put my words in thy mouth, 
and I have covered thee in the shadow of mine hand, 
that I may plant the heavens and lay the foundations 
of the earth, and say unto Zion, Thou art my people." f 

It would almost seem as if the light which is yet to 
come, and the glory of the Lord which is yet to arise upon 
Israel, J is, in a measure at least, synonymous with the 
new heavens and new earth of St. Peter ; as if, indeed, the 
gathering together of God's ancient people in the city 
and land of their fathers, Christ Jesus the Lord sitting on 
the throne of his father David, all the nations of the 
earth adhering to his righteous sway and government, 

* Isaiah lxv., 17, 18. t Isaiah li. 16. % Isaiah lx. 1. 
II 



242 The Glory of the Lord filling the Earth. 

along with those material changes in the atmosphere and 
general lay of the earth, with perhaps some change in the 
spherical form of the globe, which may take place when 
" the heavens, being on fire, shall be dissolved, and the 
elements shall melt with fervent heat ; " * may comprise, 
on the whole, what is to be understood by the phrase, 
" Behold, I make all things new;"\ or may answer to 
this passage in the Book of Revelation : " And I saw 
a new heaven and a new earth ; for the first heaven and 
the first earth were passed away, and there was no 
more sea." \ 

Whatever reception this interpretation of somewhat 
obscure passages may receive, one thing is made abso- 
lutely certain on the authority of the word of God, and 
tends, as we think, to confirm the view we have taken of 
this exceedingly interesting subject — a subject so inter- 
woven with the promises of God respecting " the glory of 
Israel," and the future of our earth. It is this. That after 
" the creation of new heavens and a new earth," according 
to Isaiah, what follows will be found literally true : God 
will have " created Jerusalem," the city of our God, " a 
rejoicing, and her people a joy." To this is added these 
joyous words : " And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy 
in my people ; and the voice of weeping shall be no more 
heard in her, nor the voice of crying." § The prophet, 
upon this, proceeds to speak of its coming happy and 
prosperous days, more so and in fuller measure than the 
nation, as such, ever saw before — building houses and 
inhabiting them, planting vineyards and eating the fruit of 
them; and closes by saying, " For as the days of a tree 
are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy 
the work of their hands." || 

* II. Peter iii. 12. t Revelation xxi. 5. % Revelation xxi. 1. § Isaiah lxv. 19. 

|| Isaiah lxv. 22. 



The Glory of the Lord filling the Earth. 243 

In corroboration of this, and showing that after the new 
creation has been effected, after it has been said " there 
should be time no longer," after " the mystery of God has 
been finished," after " the kingdoms of this world have 
become the kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ," after "the 
stone cut out without hands has become a great mountain 
and filled the whole earth," Israel, like the loftiest of 
mountains, rises high above all storms and clouds. Her 
" fruit shall shake like Lebanon ; and they of the city 
shall flourish like grass of the earth." * Hence we have 
these most remarkable words, which place Israel, in her 
latter end, on a pinnacle of glory unknown to any other 
people, and assure the perpetuity of her name and race 
long after the happy " restitution of all things," and 
when, according to the word of the Lord, " the whole 
earth is filled with his glory " f : " For as the new 
heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall 
remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed 
and your name remain." J They are to run parallel 
with each other; as long as the one remains the other 
will remain. 

At this point in the order of God's ways may we not 
take our stand, with Ezekiel in the vision, at " the gate 
that looketh toward the east" — the gate which admits 
you into the courts of the Lord's house and into the sanct- 
uary — and, casting our eye over city and temple, and 
the land of Israel, and the whole of this broad, fair earth, 
adopt the language of the prophet : " And, behold, the 
glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the 
east, and his voice was like a noise of many waters, and 
the earth shined with his glory " ? § 

How closely, how inseparably united and identified with 
" the glory of the Lord filling the whole earth " is " the 

* Psalm lxxii. 16. t Psalm lxxii. 19. \ Isaiah lxvi. 22. § Ezekiel xliii. 2. 



244 The Glory of the Lord filling the Earth. 

kingdom, when restored to Israel," — that "kingdom" 
which, the inspired psalmist says, " is the Lord's, and he 
is the governor among the nations." * 

But, looking forward with joyous hope and excited 
expectation to the time when, according to the declaration 
of the Almighty, " But as truly as I live, all the earth 
shall be filled with the glory of the Lord," we see advanc- 
ing toward us a spectacle more glorious than any age 
has yet seen, but which is reserved for our eyes to behold 
in the fullness of time. It was, indeed, a sight to see, a 
spectacle to behold, the tribes of Israel, leaving their usual 
occupations, and the frontiers unguarded (for not a man 
was left behind for defense f ), come up to Jerusalem three 
times a year, to worship the Lord of hosts in his holy 
temple. But what a spectacle of grandeur, what a source 
of pure delight, to witness " all flesh" from every land, 
every clime, coming up to Jerusalem, the holy city, 
traversing all lands, coming from every part of the habita- 
ble globe, to worship the Lord in his holy temple in 
Jerusalem! We read: "And it shall come to pass, that 
from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath 
to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith 
the Lord." \ 

It is observable, and worthy of our deepest attention, — 
as if to show us conclusively that we are not dealing with 
a fancy picture, like children at play, but with an abso- 
lute reality, when we thus speak, — that God does not use 
vain words when speaking of the solemn realities of 
existence — of what appertains to man in the vast future. 
In connection with the great fact that " all flesh will come 
to worship before the Lord in his holy mountain, Jerusa- 
lem," and especially how those Jews dwelling in distant 
lands w T ill reach there (for it does not follow that the res- 

* Psalm xxii. 28. t Professor Bush- J Isaiah lxvi. 23. 



The Glory of the Lord filling the Earth. 



"H-0 



toration of Israel to Palestine necessarily includes all Jews, 
any more than on the occasion of their return from Baby- 
lon), we have the whole thing — the manner of the return 
— laid down, as if on a map, with singular fullness and in 
careful detail. First, we read : " It shall come that I will 
gather all nations and tongues, and they shall come and 
see my glory." * 

This is not all. God will put into the heart of the 
nations whom he has brought to the knowledge of him- 
self, and purified from all their abomination, a great love 
for his people living in the midst of them. Hence we 
read these words, so obscure unless we take them in this 
easy and natural connection: "And they" (the Gentiles) 
" shall bring all your brethren for an offering unto the Lord 
out of all nations, upon horses, and in chariots, and in 
litters, and upon mules, and upon swift beasts, to my holy 
mountain Jerusalem, saith the Lord, as the children of 
Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel into the house of 
the Lord."f 

There is a still further supplement to all this glory 
and worship ; and what is it ? It is a beacon and a 
warning. It is a kind of watch tower, letting its light 
shine out from afar, showing how the world was wrecked 
and the inhabitants of the earth " punished for their 
iniquity." Amid all the glory, while the people of every 
clime hasten, as if on eagles' wings, to worship the 
Lord of hosts in Jerusalem, to pay the homage of their 
hearts' adoration, a monument of the indignation that 
is, we trust, forever past, greets their wondering eyes; 
and, strange to say, it is found in the very last verse 
of the prophet Isaiah: "And they shall go forth" — ■ 
like victors looking down upon a battle-field all gory 
with blood — "and look upon the carcasses of the men 

* Isaiah lxvi. 18. f Isaiah lxvi. 20. 



246 The Glory of the Lord filling the Earth. 

that have transgressed against me; for their worm shall 
not die, neither shall their fire be quenched, and they 
shall be an abhorring unto all flesh."* 

Here we pause. The earth shines with the glory of 
the Lord. The knowledge of the glory of the Lord 
fills the whole earth as the waters cover the sea. 
There is no nook nor crevice where his name is not 
known, his power not felt. As in heaven untold myriads 
worshiped and adored, so now on this redeemed earth. 
We close with the words of the royal Psalmist — 
the patriarch and prophet David, the son of Jesse — 
" Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who 
only doeth wondrous things. And blessed be his glorious 
name forever; and let the whole earth be filled with 
his glory. Amen, and amen." t 

Surely this should suffice. Heaven on this earth. 
All the glory and blessedness that belong to heaven 
transferred to this renewed, redeemed earth. God here, 
sitting on a throne of glory. Patriarchs, prophets and 
apostles here, blending their voices in one united, har- 
monious song of praise. What more can we desire ? 
May we not say, in reference to this earth, with the 
three on the sacred mount — the mount of transfigura- 
tion — "It is good to be here"? We may have said it 
before — we say it again — was not this holy mount, 
the transfiguration that there took place, the excellent 
glory that was then and there felt and seen, a fore- 
shadowing of our new earth, when, the curse removed, 
it shall be bathed in the light and glory of heaven, 
and shall shine with the undimmed luster of eternity? 
Let it be perpetual. 

* Isaiah lxvi. 24. t Psalm lxxii., 18, 19. 



CHAPTER V. 



Peace on Earth, Good-will toward Men. 



WOULD it not be strange, a mere sound meaning 
nothing, conveying no significance, if the song 
sung by angels, by " a multitude of the heavenly host," 
heard by shepherds " abiding in the field, keeping watch 
over their flocks by night, " should have died away in 
the air in the still night, and this commemoration of the 
birth of Christ not find an ample fulfillment in the rolls 
of time? What though some two thousand years have 
since nearly rolled away, and wars have not yet ceased to 
the end of the earth, and discord still reigns among men, 
engendering evil passions, hate, rancor, malice and all 
uncharitableness ; does it necessarily follow that it always 
will be so, and that peace, in its fullest, broadest and most 
blessed sense, will not yet come to our torn and distracted 
earth, — like the dove with the olive branch in its mouth 
returning to the ark, sign and signal proof that the war of 
waters had ceased from off the drowned earth ? 

247 



24 8 The Glory of the Lord filling the Earth. 

When, also, we recollect whose birth was thus ushered 
in, — even that of "the Prince of Peace," of "the in- 
crease of whose government and peace there shall be no 
end,"* — we are the more confirmed, all appearances to the 
contrary notwithstanding, in our belief that the time will 
come when men " shall learn war no more." f What a 
message from God to man, from heaven to earth ! " Fear 
not," said the angel to the shepherds, " for, behold, I 
bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. 
For unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a 
Saviour, which is Christ the Lord." \ A dazzling bright- 
ness, incomparable splendor, described as " the glory of 
the Lord," shone round about the shepherds, — placing 
in bold relief the heavenly messenger, dispelling all doubt 
from their minds, confirming what they heard with what 
they saw. Amid light so resplendent, bathing earth and 
sky with the glory of the Lord, " suddenly there was with 
the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, 
and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth 
peace, good- will toward men." § \ 

Was there ever a message brought to our earth under 
such circumstances as these ? All displays of the glory 
of God in the past, of which we have numerous instances 
in the history of God's ancient people, fade before this. 
None can compare with the exhibition of the power and 
glory of God accompanying the birth of Christ Jesus the 
Lord into our world. But to cut off all pretense of 
objection on the ground of mistake or deceptibility, the 
shepherds are directed to go and see for themselves " this 
thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made 
known to them." || And still further to guard against the 
bare possibility of self-deception, the angel who brings the 
heavenly message describes to the shepherds beforehand 

* Isaiah ix. 7. t Isaiah ii. 4. {Lukeii., 10, 11. § Lukeii., 13, 14. || Luke ii. 15. 



The Glory of the Lord filling the Earth. 249 

the babe as they will find him. " And this shall be a sign 
unto you; ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling 
clothes, lying in a manger" * And so it all fell out; and 
the shepherds made known abroad all that they had 
heard and seen concerning this child. " And all they that 
heard it wondered at those things which were told them 
by the shepherds." f 

And what in fact was the purport of this heavenly mes- 
sage thus brought to our ears, based on the birth of Christ, 
"the Prince of Peace" ? Was it not " on earth peace, good- 
will toward men " ? And shall we arraign God ? Shall we 
doubt his word ? This would be unbelief of the most 
dishonoring character. We are told death will be swal- 
lowed up in victory. Is there any evidence of this at this 
present day ? Is not Death, the reaper, as busy in his 
ripened field as ever? and shall we therefore conclude 
that his ravages shall never cease ? By no means. We 
are told there shall be no more pain. But is it so now ? 
That tears shall be wiped from off all faces. But is it 
so now ? So with all the other innumerable evils that 
compass us round, that sadden the heart and afflict the 
body in this the house of our pilgrimage. But will it 
always be thus ? Assuredly not ; and he who has prom- 
ised and is able to turn the valley of Baca into a well, to 
dry up all our tears and remove all our burthens and sor- 
rows, has promised, and is able, during his reign and 
his administration, to give us "abundance of peace so long 
as the moon endureth. " % 

This reign of peace, this abundance of peace — gener- 
ation following generation, or rather age succeeding to age, 
"the mountains bringing peace to the people, and the 
little hills, by righteousness," § implies, as we conceive, 
necessarily the universal sovereignty and personal reign 

* Luke ii. 12. f Luke ii. 18. \ Psalm lxxii. 7. § Psalm Ixxii. 3. 
II* 



250 The Glory of the Lord filling the Earth. 

of Christ on this our earth. Thus Zechariah, in close con- 
nection with a prophecy which had a remarkable fulfillment 
in the closing days and hours of our Saviour's earthly 
ministry, says : " And I will cut off the chariot from 
Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem, and the battle- 
bow shall be cut off; and he shall speak peace unto the 
heathen ; and his dominion shall be from sea even to sea, 
and from the river even to the ends of the earth." * 

Happily we are not left to conjecture on a point like 
this. At variance as it may be with the views of others, we 
have the indisputable testimony of holy writ to assure us 
that none but an Almighty hand — that which stilleth 
the noise of the waves and the roar of the tempest — can 
calm the tumultuous passions of men, and bid them war no 
more. In that magnificent passage in the prophecy of 
Isaiah, where " the mountain of the Lord's house" — that is 
Jerusalem, the holy city, the city of David — is placed upon 
such a height of glory, in the ascendant of all the 
cities of the earth, " established in the top of the mount- 
ains and exalted above the hills," while, as to a common 
center, " all nations flow unto it," as the rivers run into the 
sea, we read of the Lord Christ, seated on the throne of 
David, words to this effect: " And he shall judge among 
the nations, and shall rebuke many people ; and they shall 
beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into 
pruning-hooks ; nation shall not lift up sword against 
nation, neither shall they learn war any more." f 

Thus, also, we read in the forty-sixth psalm: "Come, 
behold the works of the Lord, what desolations" (wonders 
something stupendous \) "he hath wade in the earth. He 

* Zechariah ix. 10. f Isaiah ii. 4. 

1 According to Gesenius, the original word in its primary signification means aston- 
ishment. Jeremiah viii. 21. Meton. — Object of astonishment, something stupendous. 
Jeremiah v. 30. 



The Glory of the Lord filling the Earth. 251 

maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth ; he break- 
eth the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder ; he burnetii 
the chariot in the fire." * Do men cry out against this as a 
frenzy of the brain ? Do they say what has been is to be ? 
We have an answer to all the vain reasoning arising from 
unbelief: " Be still, and know that I am God. I will be 
exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the 
earth." f It is, alas ! too true that wars have desolated 
the earth in all the time that is past, and the precious soil 
has been saturated with human blood, but the answer is, 
" Be still," and know that it is God who has under- 
taken this great work — that he assumed our nature to 
accomplish it in a way consonant to his own infinite 
perfections ; and that he who, on that dark, tempestuous 
night, arose from the hard deck on which he had been 
sleeping, wearied with the labors of the day, and bade the 
stormy waves, which threatened every moment to swallow 
up the little vessel, " Be still; and instantly there was a 
great calm," will find a way to put an end to war, with all 
its attendant evils ; and in the place of the ruthless battle- 
field, the gleaming spear, and the shock of arms in deadly 
contest, men " shall beat their swords into plowshares 
and their spears into pruning-hooks, and they shall learn 
war no more." 

Yes. Inasmuch as when Jesus, " the Light of the 
world," was born, the gates of the temple of Janus, in the 
city of Rome, according to the custom of that people in 
time of peace, were shut, and remained on this occasion 
closed for the space of twelve years, — peace over the 
whole world prevailing during that period of time, in the 
reign of Caesar Augustus, % — so when the great sovereign 
of the universe, who was once the babe of Bethlehem, 

* Psalm xlvi. 8, 9. t Psalm xlvi. 10. % Prid. Con., vol. ii., p. 414. 



252 The Glory of the Lord filling the Earth. 

'■• shall be King over all the earth," he will " make wars to 
cease unto the end of the earth," not for a time or times, as 
in the past, but for evermore ; and the song that was sung 
on the night of the birth of Christ, proclaiming the advent 
of " the Prince of Peace " into our warring world, will 
find an answer in every heart • while from hill and vale, 
from city and country, comes back from over the whole 
earth, after the lapse of so many revolving centuries, the 
echo from the grassy plains of Bethlehem, " Glory to God 
in the highest, on earth peace, good-will toward men." 

Torn as this earth is and ever has been by war — often, 
perhaps, as men's hopes have been raised and then 
depressed as to the repression and abatement of this 
scourge of the human race ; still, at the last, to whom can 
we look but to the Lord Jesus, " King over all the earth," 
to bring about that happy day when nations shall learn 
war no more; and all shall sit under their own vine 
and fig-tree — with none to molest or make them 
afraid. Hail, peace! descended from the skies! Visit 
our torn and distracted earth ! and let all mankind 
acknowledge his sovereign sway who, sitting on the 
throne of David, "the first begotten of the dead, 
and the Prince of the Kings of the earth,"* has 
fast chained the dogs of war, and has set a bound to 
human passions, even as he set bounds to the mighty 
waste of waters, so that they shall no more rise, over- 
flow, and lay desolate the earth. To the Prince of 
Peace, and to his government of peace, destined to 
increase until it shall encompass the whole earth, must 
we ascribe " the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness 
of the kingdom wider the whole heaven ; whose kingdom 
is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve 
and obey him." f 

* Revelation i. 5. i Daniel vii. 27. 



The Glory of the Lord filling the Earth. 253 

As a concomitant of this universal and perpetual peace 
" under the whole heaven," the necessary adjunct of the 
kingdom of God set up here on the earth, must be added 
the second clause of the angelic song celebrating the birth 
of Christ Jesus the Lord — "good-will toward men." What 
is needed for this but to have set up in the soul " the 
kingdom of God"— an inward kingdom, which is "not 
meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in 
the Holy Ghost " ? * Strike but this one chord and har- 
mony will ring out through the universe. Nothing else 
will be required ; all hearts will answer in unison. There 
will be no discordant string. The same sweet accord that 
existed in the multitude of the heavenly host, which 
warmed and inspired their song, and sent its thrilling 
strains down upon the plains of Judea, — strains that 
belong to heaven alone, — and which burst upon the 
ravished ears of the astonished shepherds, wrapped in 
ecstasy when their fear was gone, and before them was 
arrayed heaven's minstrelsy, circling the sky, radiant with 
light, — this strain will be heard anew, but on a still grander, 
larger scale. It will be the same heavenly refrain, but all 
voices will join therein. Merciful God ! What a chorus 
of voices will then be heard ! From earth's remotest 
bounds, from " India's coral strand," from rude barbarians' 
shore, — barbarians no more, — from every sea-girt isle, 
from pole to pole, will come up a world of voices, 
mightier far than the sound of many waters, sweetest 
carol that e'er was sung, and this shall be the loud 
acclaim : " Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, 
good-will toward men." 

And wilt thou, O God, subdue all hearts to thyself — 
renew man in thy image — conform him to thy death — 
place the crown on his head — lighten his visage with celes- 

* Romans xiv. 17. 



254 The Glory of the Lord filling the Earth. 

tial glory — irradiate his soul with the knowledge of thyself, 
and so heaven and earth unite in these adoring words: 
" The song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of 
the Lamb, saying, Great and marvelous are thy works, 
Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou 
King of saints. Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and 
glorify thy name ? for thou only art holy ; for all 7iations 
shall come and worship before thee ; for thy judgments are 
made manifest." * 

* Revelation xv. 3, 4. 



CHAPTER VI. 



How the Lord Jesus Christ will become " King of all 

the Earth" 



AS we survey the present condition of the world, in 
whatever direction we look, whether to the east or 
west, the north or the south, everywhere we see empires, 
dominions, kingdoms and states, strong and powerful, 
with a tendency in the strongest and most powerful to 
still greater consolidation; and the question naturally 
arises, how are all these to be merged into one, and to 
constitute one universal empire, with the Lord Jesus Christ 
at the head, as the supreme ruler of the whole ? If a good 
and satisfactory answer to this, drawn from God's most 
holy word, cannot be made, nothing more preposterous 
than this could even be hinted at, much less seriously pro- 
posed and maintained. There would be nothing left but 
for the world to move on in the same old track of wars 
and fightings, with its endless and ever accumulating 
train of evils, with no prospect of change or relief through 

255 



256 The Glory of the Lord Jilting the Earth. 

endless cycles of ages. With life so short and the future 
so dark, without a ray of light to illumine the ever thick- 
ening gloom, hope would die out of the human heart, 
and the earth would soon become desolate. Changeless 
night would settle on the wide expanse. Man could not 
sustain it. Life would expire. Whether men know it or 
not, whether men acknowledge it or not, whether they 
accept or reject the light that shines from heaven upon the 
path of human life, it is the secret hope of something 
better in the future, inseparable from our being, that sus- 
tains the present order of things and keeps the world 
peopled, alive and active, and gilds what would be the 
otherwise impenetrable blackness of a night without an end. 
This hope, this secret inspiration of the soul, whatever 
form it may take, whatever guise it may assume or clothe 
itself with, exists in every human soul, and finds its source 
and life, its strength, in the declaration that Jesus Christ, 
" in whom is life," is " the true Light, which lighteth every 
man that cometh into the world." * There is no excep- 
tion to this rule, and, viewed in this light, under this form 
of truth, how little does the world at large conceive of 
or appreciate the inestimable benefits — never tracing 
them to their source— '-which come to us through Jesus 
Christ, the Saviour of the world. 

But still the question recurs, — looking upon the king- 
doms of the world as they are now constituted, covering 
the face of the whole earth, almost impregnable in the 
majesty of their might and endlessness of their resources, 
— how can this be, how can so great a change in nations 
be brought about, and, above all, how is it that the sov- 
ereignty of Christ is to be transferred from heaven to earth, 
and Jesus to reign in person among men ? On this latter 
point, we have said all we have to say ; it must be resolved 

* John i., 4, 9. 



The Glory of the Lord filling the Earth. 257 

into the will of God, as authoritatively set forth in his 
word. There we leave it, — deny it who may or can. 

But, as to the former part of the query, — the seeming 
immovability of the nations, and the extreme improbability 
of so universal and radical a change as has been referred 
to, — turn for a moment from the present to the past. 
And what a lesson have we here of change and decay ! 
Not, indeed, by any sudden or miraculous turn in human 
affairs, but in consequence of that transitoriness which has 
affixed its mark on all things here below. Once the East 
reigned supreme ; now, the West. Who would have sup- 
posed or dreamed of such a change, in the days of those 
mighty and world-renowned monarchies which have long 
since ceased to exist — the multitude of voices that were 
heard in them hushed forever in the dust ? Not that this 
by any means answers the question proposed ; but it calls 
upon us to pause and reflect, and not decide too hastily 
against the vast change and complete overthrow of all the 
present kingdoms of the world, as they antagonize the 
kingdom and dominion and universal sovereignty of Jesus 
Christ. 

The question of possibility and impossibility is forever 
recurring in connection with the kingdom of God, when 
in fact it should not recur at all, and would not, if we had 
right views of God, and our knowledge of him was fully 
based on what his word reveals. But here we are weak 
— weak as weakness itself. A kind of fatuity misleads 
and blinds us. We almost imagine God to be such a one as 
ourselves, and are ready — at least in part — to place him 
nearly on a level with the imaginary divinities of the Iliad. 
The very fact of our blessed Lord's incarnation, through 
our ignorance, the darkness of our understanding and 
" enmity of our hearts," is made to deteriorate him in the 



258 The Glory of the Lord filling the Earth. 

views of many, strangely forgetting or overlooking the 
great fact, the sublime spectacle, that though " He was in 
the world, and the world was made by him, the world knew 
him not." * Wondrous saying ! 

Tracing this fatuity, this blindness, to its true source, — 
the heart, — we suppose men will think themselves out- 
raged, and, as in the case of Stephen, be ready to stone 
those who make what they would regard as a foul assertion 
— that the same enmity to God, the same readiness to 
traduce his holy name, exists in every unrenewed heart — 
every heart opposed to Christ — as in the devil himself. 
And yet, is not this the very charge Christ Jesus the Lord 
brought against those Jews who rejected " his counsel and 
would none of his reproof." Where could you find 
harsher words — a more stinging rebuke ? At the time he 
used this stern, terrible language, enraged by his discourses, 
their self-love wounded to the last degree, the Jews were 
ready to " kill him." Thus he says : " Ye are of your 
father, the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. 
He was a murderer from the beginning " (alluding to their 
disposition and intention to kill him), " and abode not in 
the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he 
speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own : for he is a liar, 
and the father of it." f Were the Jews so much worse 
than those who reject and oppose Christ, and blaspheme 
his name, in this our day, or even call in question his 
ability to do " whatsoever he pleaseth in the armies of 
heaven, or among the inhabitants of the earth ? " 

Perhaps it may be well for us to inquire whence these 
doubts and fears arise, as to this universal reign of Christ 
as " king over all the earth," and whether or no we have 
formed sufficiently definite and high views of the power 
of Christ to accomplish what may be termed the highest 

* John i. 10. i John viii. 44. 



The Glory of the Lord filling the Earth. 259 

good of man and the glory of God. May there not be 
lurking in the heart, lying as if in ambush, a secret, 
scarcely traceable disbelief of many, if not in reality all, 
of his wonderful works? Such is the nature of unbelief: 
if we give up one of his works, — any one, though the 
most incredible of all, — sooner or later we give up all. 
In such case, we must come back quickly to the source 
of all truth. We must trace the river back, through all its 
windings, to the fountain-head. We must keep our eyes 
on the star which shineth from afar; and if, like the 
Magi, we have lost it for a time, we must not rest till we 
find it again — till it guides us, with our offerings, to the 
place where the Redeemer is laid. " Come back ! " says 
the voice ; and, following our celestial guide, we will find 
the truth of the declaration that what " is impossible with 
man is possible with God." 

However strong nations appear to man, however invin- 
cible their armies, how r ever multitudinous their hosts of busy 
men, how do they appear in the sight of God ? We must 
go to the written word for an answer to this. One thing 
we know for certain. A century — the little span of a 
hundred years — will sweep them all away. What arm 
does this ? What mighty arm ? He who does this, what 
can he not do ? There is no head so high that he cannot 
bring it low ; no arm so strong that he cannot break ; no 
tongue so loud, speaking lofty words, that he cannot 
silence. " This God is our God ; he will be our guide, 
even unto death." 

What a picture we have of the power of God, of the 
littleness and weakness of man, in the following passage 
from holy writ : " Have ye not known ? have ye not 
heard ? hath it not been told you from the beginning ? 
have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth ? 



260 The Glory of the Lord filling the Earth. 

It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the 
inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers ; that stretcheth 
out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a 
tent to dwell in ; that bringeth the princes to nothing ; he 
maketh the judges of the earth as vanity." * 

What will avail kings and potentates, earthly grandeur, 
the strength, pomp and glory of the world, when, accord- 
ing to the word of his servant of old, in " the day of the 
Lord of hosts, the Lord, for the glory of his majesty, and 
the exaltation of his name, shall arise to shake terribly 
the earth ; " t where then will be found " the kings of the 
earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief 
captains, and the mighty men? "J He who can "roll 
together the heaven as a scroll, and move every mountain 
and island out of their places," can cause " kings and 
armies," as of old, to " flee apace," and, like snow on the 
mountain of Salmon, spreadeth the bones of the slain 
to be bleached, whitening the ground.§ In the day of 
the Lord of hosts, in the fierceness of his indignation, 
kingdoms will vanish away, empires cease to exist, " as 
smoke is driven away, and as wax melteth before the fire." 

As a marked contrast to the kingdoms and the power 
of the nations of the present time, the mighty — almost 
irresistible — strength of great armies drawn up in hostile 
array, read in God's word how they dwindle into insignifi- 
cance, and how easily and how soon they " are cut off and 
fly away." How deeply impressive are the following 
words ! and let it no longer be a question of how the 
universal empire of Christ Jesus the Lord will be estab- 
lished over the earth, and " the Lord shall be king over 
all the earth," as to whether or not it is so ordered 
and ordained of God. " Behold, the nations are as a 
drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust 

* Isaiah xl. 21-23. t Isaiah ii. 17-21. * Revelation vi. 15. § Psalm lxviii. 12-14. 



The Glory of the Lord filling the Earth. 261 

of the balance : behold, he taketh up the isles as a 
very flttle thing." * And again we read : " All nations 
before him are as nothing/ and they are counted to him 
less than nothing, and vanity." f 

Why need we doubt any longer, or fail to look forward 
to the dawning of a better day, when 

" Jesus shall reign where'er the sun 
Does his successive journeys run ; 
His kingdom spread from shore to shore 
Till moons shall wax and wane no more." 

Theoretically, people have sung these words often 
enough ; let them now become to them an absolute real- 
ity, built upon the word and promise of God ; sustained 
by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead; the 
subject of prophecy by all the holy prophets since the 
world began, the grand panacea for all human ills, and 
the beginning of the bright, illustrious day when " the 
knowledge of the glory of the Lord shall fill the earth, as 
the waters cover the sea." 

Come, dawn on us quickly, celestial day ! Dispel all 
darkness, chase away all gloom ! More than restore the 
earth to its primeval state; vindicate the truth, the justice, 
the goodness of God. Crown man with glory and hon- 
or, as at the first ; place him at the head of creation, 
with all his " blushing honors thick upon him." Raise 
the dead, change the living, and let the splendor of eter- 
nity's day rise upon our world. " And the Lord alone 
shall be exalted in that day." | 

* Isaiah xl. 15. t Isaiah xl. 17. % Isaiah ii. 17. 



THE END. 



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